


Broken Are the Faithful

by GreenSaplingGrace



Series: Follow the Blind [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Abusive Parents, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Arthur Is Big Dumb, Arthur Morgan Deserves Happiness, Arthur Morgan Has Low Self-Esteem, Arthur Morgan Needs A Hug, Arthur Morgan Whump, Arthur Morgan's Journal, BAMF Arthur Morgan, BAMF Charles Smith, BAMF Hosea Matthews, Bathing/Washing, Bisexual Arthur Morgan, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Bottom Arthur Morgan, But He Will Literally Shoot You In the Head If You Say So, But So Is Charles So It's Okay, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Charles Smith Is A Blessing, Comfort, Competence Kink, Cuddling & Snuggling, Debt Collecting, Demisexual Arthur Morgan, Dutch van der Linde's A+ Parenting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Found Family, Gang Violence, Hosea Matthews's Actual A+ Parenting, Hurt Arthur Morgan, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Low Honor Arthur Morgan, M/M, Medium Honor Arthur Morgan, No Sex, POV Arthur Morgan, POV Charles Smith, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Protective Arthur Morgan, Protective Charles Smith, Protective Hosea Matthews, Rated For Violence, Redemption, Slow Burn, Soft Arthur Morgan, Top Charles Smith, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23659312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSaplingGrace/pseuds/GreenSaplingGrace
Summary: It starts with a speech, as all things in Arthur's life do. Yet this time it ain’t Dutch speaking, it’s Arthur, and the words coming out of his mouth are vile and black as his heart, but he has to say them. So he does.True to form, as all words and talks and lengthy speeches typically bring him, a world of trouble follows.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Charles Smith, Arthur Morgan & Dutch van der Linde, Arthur Morgan & Original Character(s), Arthur Morgan & Van der Linde Gang, Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith, Charles Smith & Original Character(s), Charles Smith & Rains Fall, Charles Smith & Rains Fall & Eagle Flies, Eagle Flies & Rains Fall (Minor), Hosea Matthews & Arthur Morgan, Hosea Matthews & Arthur Morgan & Dutch van der Linde, John Marston & Arthur Morgan
Series: Follow the Blind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703530
Comments: 67
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see endnotes for trigger warnings and story spoilers

_I’ve been sent to collect debts for Herr Strauss. It’s a string of desperates and fools. Makes me wonder if the work is honest as they say it is, but I don’t care much either way. Dutch says the lending is necessary, so I figure he must have his reasons._

_Next place is farmland some ways away from both Valentine and the city. Real isolated. Rundown too. Don’t look like much - looks like they’ve come on hard times. Guess they’re of the desperate sort and not the foolish, though perhaps they’re both._

_We shall see I guess._

—-

It starts with talking. It starts with a speech. 

It always starts with a speech. 

Usually, Arthur’s the one behind the speaker, a silent force of brute strength and unspoken threat. This time, he’s the one speaking. Maybe that’s what makes it go so wrong. Then again, maybe not. If years and years of listening to Dutch and Hosea spin their tales has taught Arthur one thing, it’s that using words in general makes things all the more complicated than they need be.

Sometimes a little violence goes a long way. Dutch knows that. Dutch taught him that. Sometimes Hosea though...well, it doesn’t matter.

He talks instead of threatening, he doesn't know why, and maybe he should have threatened a bit more. 

It’s the last name on the list and the last location he ends up visiting. Having spent the night making housecalls to all the others, he pulls up to the place around dawn the next day, weighed by fatigue and just about ready to kill a man if it means getting this whole damn thing over and done with.

Who knows, perhaps killing the husband will get the wife to pay up. 

Gravel crunches beneath his boots as he walks up to the old farmhouse, surrounded on all sides by lush rolling grasses and a sea of gold tipped cornhusks. He leaves his bike down the slope, parked askew where the driveway meets the road, and the sun’s peak above the horizon casts a hellish red glow over the sleek dark paint.

The debtors - Mr. and Mrs. Johnson - hardly react when he approaches. There are no sudden moves or attempts to flee. No frightened gasps. They just look tired; weary to the bone.

Mrs Johnson is wrist deep in the soil out front their house, on the left side of a garden stretched outwards in two directions from the porch steps. Mr Johnson is on the porch bench, fiddling with something Arthur can’t quite make out. He stands when Arthur gets close, and that’s about all he does. 

His shoulders are slumped with exhaustion and his eyes are pleading, but it’s a wasted effort. If he’s trying to get some sympathy, he’s focusing his act on the wrong damn person.

“Mr. Johnson?” The man flinches at his name, and the fearful glint in his eye says he already knows who Arthur is. He doesn’t move to respond further than that as Arthur finally reaches the battered white steps, and Arthur narrows his eyes furiously, crossing his arms over his chest. If Mr. Johnson wants to be pushed, Arthur is more than happy to oblige. “I’m here to collect what you owe. Where’s my money?” His voice is low now, deep to the point of roughness, and his accent comes through thick and thuggish for it. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Mrs. Johnson stand in response, but he doesn’t even cast her a sideways glance, eyes fixed on the nervous man in front of him.

“Please, sir,” Mr. Johnson begs, and some of that cold weariness has turned itself into fervent worry, with his hands shaking and shoulders tensing. His voice wavers, but he prattles on anyway. “It's been rough for us. Please, we don’t-” 

Arthur growls loud enough to cut him off, and the man freezes. He spits to the side and drops his hands into fists, stance shifting to one of promised violence. “That ain’t what I asked ya, Mr. Johnson. I asked where the money is. The money that belongs to my business partner, Herr Strauss. The money you borrowed.”

“Please, try to understand-”

Arthur scoffs. “Think I’ve done enough understandin’ for one night, Mr. Johnson.”

“We-we would have to take out another loan-”

“Well what are you waitin’ for? Take it out. Sell the land. Hell, sell the damn house! Ain’t no business o’ mine what you do, long as I get my damn money.”

Mr. Johnson shakes his head like there’s something caught in it. Maybe he’s got some cotton all up in his ears, cause he sure as hell isn’t listening to a word Arthur’s saying. 

Why is nobody capable of giving him what he asks?

Like a hammer at the back of his skull, Dutch’s speeches about their needing money ring loud and clear. Yet for every house Arthur visits, it seems as if they’ve gained nothing but fear and misery. Strauss truly has a knack for picking those least likely to pay him back, that’s for damn sure.

And maybe it’s on that thought that Mr. Johnson’s next words rest - maybe that’s what makes it all fall apart - because the man says, “please, just give us another week. Another week and we’ll have everything we owe you. We’ll have double.” 

And Arthur, the fool he is, agrees.

There is no blood spilt that morning. No threats and no tears. His hands wrap around the handlebars of his bike until his knuckles are white with the force of it, and the only blood that sits there is hours old, shed back at Emerald Ranch. He thinks he doesn’t care much at all how old the blood is, there’ll be new blood soon enough. New money soon enough, too. A week from now.

They’d better have it by then, he thinks, the rev of his engine cutting through birdsong with a building roar, or there’ll be hell to pay instead.

\---

His gun is old as sin, a black pistol nicked and rough with use that still retains the gleam of its first day. A gift from Hosea. 

Nowadays, he can hardly believe it.

Arthur cleans that gun every day if he can. He shoots enough for it, and the motions are familiar to him now. Calming. He still remembers the day he got it. The press of the handle against his palm every time he wipes down the rough surface. The crack from his very first shot as he cleans the barrel. The mass of broken bark through the sights when he polishes the slide.

It had been Hosea at his back, teaching him, but Dutch had been there too, somewhere around the recently burned remains of a rich man’s home. Hosea’s hand had been heavy and comforting on his shoulder - guiding; his instructions strict and easy, spoken only when needed - understanding. The wide brimmed hat he’d worn that day paired horribly with his purple dress shirt and bright vest. A truly garish sight, but Arthur still remembers it fondly. 

Sometimes, when he sits and remembers, he can still feel every nook and crevice in the pistol; feel Hosea’s warmth beside him, a foot away and stance wide, as if he’d been ready for any number of troubles.

Dutch is smoke and weightlessness behind him, but his praise stands out clearly in Arthur’s mind, not as words but as a feeling. Pride.

Arthur’s always been a good killer. He’s always made Dutch proud.

Once, he’d made Hosea proud too.

\---

_The Johnsons asked me for another week and I gave it to them. I don’t know why, but I did. I would never lie to Dutch or keep secrets, but I haven’t told him about the extra time just yet. Money issues ain’t pressing right now, least not as much as everyone seems to think, especially with what we took from the other debtors already in the pot._

_Herr Strauss will be happy, I’m sure._

_Then maybe once we’ve got all the money, Dutch will have enough to get us somewhere else. I find this place to be stifling, even if Valentine has a nice bar worth spending some time in. With enough money, maybe we can go somewhere more open. With fields instead of farms, far away from any civilization._

_Here’s hoping._

\---

“Oooh, the hick wants to be a cowboy! Where’d you get that hat, pretty boy? Did you find it in the gutter where you sleep or did Daddy give it to you after you sucked his-”

There’s a sickening snap as Arthur’s fist meets the kid’s face and then he’s screaming, falling back and clutching at his nose as blood pours through his fingers. His friends startle from where they’d been laughing, relaxed and unprepared against the dirty brick wall of the bar, but Arthur’s got a grip on the brat’s blue shirt collar before either of them can even take a step forward.

“You wanna say that again to my face boy?!” He slams the kid against the wall and lifts until he’s choking and kicking, hands coming down to claw bloody marks onto Arthur’s wrists, exposing the mass of bone and flesh in the center of his face. He opens his mouth to speak through red slick teeth, but Arthur pulls him forward and slams him back again until his head bangs violently against the wall. “You’d best shut your damn mouth if you wanna keep them teeth.” 

The boy is either brave or an idiot, because he tries to talk again. A hot anger tears through him like a wild animal, and Arthur’s snarling, taking the boy from the wall to throw him violently to the ground. He lands a solid kick to the boy’s ribs before he feels two different sets of hands roughly grab his arms in an attempt to pull him away.

They’re shouting something, he knows, but the words barely make it past the seething fury. He grabs the other kid’s arm - he doesn’t know which, and it doesn’t matter to him anyway - and twists until he hears a pop. Then his fist connects with a face for the second time that night, slamming hard enough into the boy’s cheekbone to force his eyes closed and his body limp against the ground.

The third one is a hazy blur in Arthur’s eyes. He can’t say if he has black or red or blonde hair. What color his eyes are. What color his skin is or what his clothes look like. All Arthur knows is that the kid leaps like a rabbit when Arthur faces him, wrecked and spitting mad, and turns to run so quickly his fancy shoe slides against the wet mud and whips him forward with a force that makes the sound of his head hitting the building crack like a gunshot. He crumples and doesn’t get up.

Arthur spits again because there’s blood in his mouth that isn’t his, then stumbles out of the alley like a drunk. He’s pulling out his phone before he even realizes it, the movement foreign to him after a fight, even brutal ones like this. Something possesses him to type in three numbers. When a woman speaks to him over the phone he answers her questions. Her voice is muted. His body feels numb.

He hangs up the phone before the operator has a chance to finish her sentence, but knows an ambulance is coming. Probably police, too. He shuffles down the block to his bike, and every stare from the strangers around him catches on his skin like sandpaper.

When he wraps his hands around the handlebars this time around, knuckles white from the pressure, they’re covered in fresh blood. It drips in a steady patter down the backs of fingers and onto the asphalt beneath him. 

He stares at it for a moment, then revs the engine, tearing out of the city without a backwards glance. 

\--- 

_I got in a brawl with a group of kids today. Young and stupid, most likely barely out of college. Or still in it. Don’t know what it was they said that did it. Don’t matter much. They’re more than likely to give a good description to the police. They got a real long look at me._

_Nothing I ain’t already in trouble with the law for, but Dutch wants us to keep a low profile. He won’t be happy when he hears about this, though Bill sure was. Got a real laugh out of it, the miserable bastard._

_I visit the Johnsons tomorrow to pick up their pay. Hopefully things will be better once that whole farce is done with and I’m free from Herr Strauss’s “honest work”._

\---

They live in a mansion. It’s old and rundown, probably hasn’t been kept up for years until they moved in. 

Their little group of misfits and outcasts fills every hole and every space within minutes, unpacking chairs outside and decorating the rooms with all kinds of personal touches. It’s like a bindle opened to spill out its contents, but the space inside went on for miles.

Arthur had watched it unfurl with glee a safe distance away. He’d finally had the chance to catch a smoke, and eagerly taken what time he could away from the others, hiding away in the nearby treeline.

It had been chaos. Granted, it was as organized as chaos could be. Hosea and Ms. Grimshaw worked tirelessly to guide the frenzied procession into some semblance of control. Arthur had been able to hear the yelling and clattering and thump of furniture even from where he stood. 

Hosea had looked back at him from the doorway, where he’d been directing those inside. He’d smiled in that big broad way he did, and for the first time in what felt like years, Arthur had thought things were finally looking up for them. Like they’d finally broken free of the failures haunting their every step, from the mountains and pines of Oregon to the dry plains of Nebraska.

It wasn’t an important memory nor an incredibly recent one, but Arthur recalled it fondly for reasons he could never name. 

When he drives to the house now, beneath a torrent of rain and the moon’s silver glow, there’s nobody outside. Not that he expects anybody to be, considering only a crazy person would be out in this kind of weather. Even all of the outdoor furniture has been moved, packed onto the small concrete porch at the side of the building and protected by a flimsy red and white striped cloth awning. It’s already soaked and dripping. He doesn’t expect that furniture will last much longer.

Arthur rolls his bike up to the main porch instead, where the awning is a bit sturdier and made of actual wood. Ms. Grimshaw will give him hell when she finds it in the morning, but he isn’t about to leave it out in the rain. Besides, it’s just a bit of mud. Not like it’s gonna kill a person. Probably.

When he dismounts and pushes his way inside, quiet as possible, he’s immediately assaulted by the sound of three different arguments happening at once. 

Well at least nothing's changed in his absence. 

He sighs and kicks of his shoes next to the door before he forgets and gives Ms. Grimshaw even more reason to be angry with him. Then he hesitates, hovering uncertainly in the entryway as the voices from next door rise even louder. It’s clearly Hosea and Dutch, arguing in the living room with tones forced into a harsh whisper. 

It’s unlike them to do this out where anybody can listen in. Usually they keep it to their bedrooms or the surrounding forest, away from prying ears, so as not to cause discontent within the group. Or doubts, Arthur guesses. Dutch is always going on about doubts, as if any of them, especially Arthur, would ever doubt him.

But that’s not the problem right now. No, the problem right now is that there’s no way he’s going to be able to sneak past the doorway without them noticing.

Carefully, he tries to step forward as silently as possible -

And winces painfully at the loud _creak_ from the floorboard at the full press of his weight.

The voices hush immediately. Then, “Arthur, is that you?”.

Scowling angrily at the floor, he kicks at the creaky floorboard and huffs. He’s a damn fool, and he should probably stop eating so many canned foods and candies. Should probably stop drinking, too, but that’s unlikely to ever happen in the near future.

“‘S just me, Hosea,” he calls back, so he doesn’t end up getting shot.

“Very good, son!” Dutch yells cheerily as Hosea peaks his head out the doorway to look Arthur over, “why don’t you come join us?”

“What are you even doing out so late, Arthur?” Hosea asks, looking concerned about whatever he’s seen.

Arthur ducks his head and scuffs his foot against the traitorous floorboard again, studiously ignoring Hosea’s eyes. “Jus’ drinkin’,” he admits grudgingly.

He doesn’t see it, but he can feel Hosea’s disappointed shake of the head. He must be about to say something, but before he can get it out Dutch is speaking up again, moving to stand beside Hosea in the doorway.

“That’s the Arthur we all know.” He laughs, and Arthur looks up long enough to see him take a long pull from a cigar, beckoning Arthur closer. “We were gettin’ worried, my boy. Come on, why don’t you help Hosea and I settle something.”

“Not now, Dutch,” Hosea says. He looks tired. 

Arthur wants to say something. Anything to make that look go away, but the words feel trapped in his throat. Instead, he says, “sure, Dutch,” and looks away again before he can make a bigger fool of himself than he already has.

The burden of Hosea’s disappointment on his shoulders as he enters the room is just another amongst hundreds. In that moment, Arthur feels more weary than he ever has before.

He just wants to go upstairs and sleep. Relax even for a second after everything that’s happened; before everything that’s going to happen. But he doesn’t. He can’t.

Instead, he follows Dutch.

\---

The next day dawns bright and loud. Cheery, some would say. The sky is cloudless and the sun is clearing the horizon much the same as it had last time, a provider of gold and red rays to paint the fields and crops in raging fire.

It’s a lively morning, despite it all. The kind that calls for both late risers and early birds alike to wake with boundless, sun-blessed energy. 

It’s a lively morning, and already Arthur feels the pull of exhaustion. It’s as unyielding as it’s been since they got here, a steady weight that sits heavy on his eyelids and restless in his bones. He’s been chugging coffee like a kid with apple juice since midnight on the dot, after that fated conversation with Dutch and Hosea, but it’s a hard feeling to shake. 

He’s got to push through it. There’s a job to do, after all, that can’t wait any longer.

He pulls up to the long, winding gravel driveway for the second - and hopefully last - time. The rumble of his bike is a low purr amidst the cacophony of surrounding wildlife, just another beast waking from slumber at a sedate, leisurely pace.

The Johnsons aren’t visible from where he sits. Outside the large home, the garden is a dazzling rainbow of colors and sizes, stretching to wrap around the sides of the house as well as the front, but there’s no Mrs. Johnson tending to it this time around. 

The porch chair lies empty as well. Yet there are lights on inside, and Arthur can make out a faint conversation, too far away to place the words.

He gets off his bike and heads up the way. Same as last time, gravel crunches and the wind blows. His bike is parked in the shade of a large oak tree, covered in twisting spots of sunlight, but it still sits askew. 

He’s pointed the front tire out towards the road and away from the homestead, ready to leave as soon as this is over. The faster the better. Get in, get out, and head to Valentine for a beer or twenty, until the world don’t make sense no more. In all honesty, it’d likely make more sense, the way things are going right now.

And hell, once he gets the money Dutch will be satisfied and Arthur will never have to return here again. 

With a spring in his step he crests the hill - 

And freezes.

All of the week’s tensions come rushing back in one fell swoop, and he snaps to attention so quickly he feels his muscles start to ache. Even his jaw begins hurting as he clenches his teeth. Arthur paces up to the house and rests his hand on the bulge of his gun, circling closer to the two cars parked in front of the building. They’re a bit to the left, in the grand circle of gravel that makes up the end of the driveway.

Two cars.

The Johnsons only own one. 

He tries to think of who they could have called. A child, perhaps? A sibling? Or a distant relative? Nobody he can’t beat a little sense into.

But what if it’s the law? Would they be dumb enough to rat Dutch out? Surely a few hundred wasn’t worth their lives? Because they would surely lose them if they played this game with him. He’d make damn sure of it.

Then there’s a soft snick behind him, a rush of noise coming from inside the house that barely registers as he whirls around. He pulls his gun without thought, the hammer clicking loudly into place, and snaps it forward until he’s got it pointed squarely at the other man’s head.

It’s a stranger. Certainly not Mr. Johnson, who Arthur can see standing further in the house with his wife. They’re both looking proud, smug as can be. Arthur has never wanted to bash someone’s face in as much as he does now.

There’s no way this man is related to them. He looks like their opposite in every way, although his skin is just as dark. But his hair is long, thick and black as midnight, with two bird feathers at the end. He’s tall, too. Much taller than the Johnsons - almost the same height as Arthur - and he’s got the physique to back it up. He’s as wide as he is high, broad shouldered and well muscled. There’s a gun at his hip as well, although he hasn’t yet pulled it.

He looks like a fighter.

And he moves warily, slow and steady as if approaching a wild animal, cutting off Arthur’s view of the Johnsons quickly and efficiently by pulling the door closed behind him. Not that it’s going to do them much good. Once Arthur’s left their noble protector nothing but a ruined mess in the ground, he’s going to kick that damn door down himself.

“Who the hell’re you?” Arthur growls. It comes out more vicious than he’d intended, but at this point he’s beyond caring. His hands ache with the need to punch something, and here that something is, just waiting for his split knuckles.

Arthur reholsters his gun. The last thing they need is a dead body on top of everything else, but that doesn’t mean he’s backing down. He’d just much rather get rough and bloody right now than use a bullet from five paces.

“Charles Smith,” the man responds after a while, eyeing his movements warily. He’s got a low voice, smooth and what could almost be calming, if it weren’t for how he was acting right now.

“Well, Charles Smith,” Arthur spits derisively, “Ain’t no business o’ yours what happens here, so I suggest you clear off ‘fore I make make ya.” Arthur curls his fingers and then uncurls them; clenches them into fists over and over until his fingers ache just as much as the rest of him. He feels taught as a bowstring. One wrong move and that pretty nose is gonna have another break added to the collection.

Arthur’s threat is one that would have lesser men running, but not this guy, no. Because nothing in Arthur’s life is ever easy. 

“The Johnsons are good people,” Charles says, as if that matters a lick, “I won’t allow you to terrorize them like you have so many others.” 

Arthur laughs, cold and bitter even to his own ears, and snarls, “If ya didn’t want them afraid then you shouldn’ta let ‘em take Strauss’s loans.”

“They made a mistake, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be beaten or killed. There are other ways.”

Arthur’s fury is quickly becoming uncontrollable. He feels filled to the brim with it. Angry beyond belief. “A mistake?! The only mistake made here was that I didn’t put a bullet in their knees when I had the chance. They promised me a week, and I fuckin’ gave it to ‘em, so don’t go whinin’ to me ‘bout mistakes, boy!”

He can’t even think about Dutch right now. And the money box. And the pride, the disappointment, Strauss -

Dutch will surely find out now. There’s no avoiding it. Arthur doesn’t know why he hadn’t beat the cursed money out of them when he could, but he regrets it now. He should have put a bullet in Mr. Johnson’s skull after all.

There’s a rising sickness in his stomach that he tries to ignore. Something that makes his breath come out short and his throat tighten. He locks it away in the back of his mind with everything else and clenches his fists again, just to feel his nails biting into his skin.

Charles moves, only slightly, and Arthur’s eyes are drawn to the other man’s hands before he can realize what he’s doing. They’re tense, too, but Charles’s palms are pressed tight against his thighs instead of clenched into fists. Arthur’s eyes go up, over thick forearms and matted shirtsleeves. Then back down again, with drops of water that slide languidly across smooth, dark skin to gather at his wrist and knuckles before falling to the mud.

Arthur stares for a moment, then blinks; looks up at the sky. A couple more drops fall into his eyes and he has to flutter his lashes to clear his vision. 

The sky is darker than it was before, but not rainstorm dark - not yet. Those clouds are gathering in the distance, moving towards them with surprising speed.

He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Look, I don’t want no trouble.” A blatant lie, but true now. Maybe. “I just want what’s been promised me. What the Johnsons _agreed to_.” He doesn’t know why it’s harder to say this time around.

The rain patters lowly against their tattered home, catching where the paint curls and chips, pooling in broken shingles and sliding through worn holes. There’s a flicker in the window as one of the bulbs goes out momentarily, and Arthur has to tear his eyes away from it all. “Jus’ let me past. I’ll talk with the Johnsons and we c’n sort this out like civilized folk.”

“I doubt you’re capable of being civilized.”

“ _'Scuse me_?” And the rain doesn’t matter anymore. The mud or the Johnsons or Charles’s godforsaken arms. None of it matters except the tension and the pain and the red haze that threatens his vision.

Charles narrows his dark eyes, and his stance widens as he braces himself. “You’ve come here two times now, strapped and itching for a fight. _Threatening_ them. You expect me to think you can be civilized? If you were a decent man you never would have come here in the first place.”

“The hell do ya know of me? I got a _job_ to do-” he’s sick of fucking talking; talking gets him nowhere but deeper into shit, “-now get the _hell_ outa my way or there’ll be nothin’ left o’ you.”

Charles shakes his head, expression stony. “I’m telling you to leave. Now.”

“ _Telling_ me?!” 

And that’s it. 

His shoulder collides painfully with hard flesh in a dull smack, drowned out by the pouring rain and hard enough to force the breath out of them both. 

Then they’re weightless.

He hits the ground on his back and wheezes, scratching at the weight on his hips. His fingers dig into skin and beneath bone and he _pulls_ until he hears a crack and scream. Charles wrenches backwards, and Arthur uses the space to swing his fist into the other man’s face. 

Charles falls to the side, jolting away. Arthur’s boots churn against mud as he launches himself onto the man, bringing his fist down once, twice, three times against that same cheek when he does. 

He raises his arm for another strike, but then there’s mud in his eyes and strong fingers carving into his face. Pain explodes bright and unexpected against his jaw, the taste of copper flooding his mouth. He twists away from it and feels a hand in his hair, against his ear, ripping mercilessly at his scalp. The body beneath him heaves, and the hand against his ear pushes, and then his head is cracking against something hard and rough. Not a second later it’s ripped away to something softer, slicker, that mats against his hair and makes his head slip against the surface.

The hand moves quick as lightning and rough as rope from Arthur’s scalp to his neck, tightening next to an even heavier weight atop his chest. Arthur bucks against the pressure, snarling and spitting, roaring in anger. His head is lifted, rocked forward and back against the earth with a force that makes his ears ring and his mind white out.

He screams this time, gnashing his teeth and kicking wildly, and has enough awareness to bring his legs up, hook his knees, and _twist_. Then they’re both mauling at the dirt and leaves, trying and failing to stand. Through the mud and rain and overcast, Arthur can see the other man staggering to his feet, hair pressed to his face by all manner of things, skin wet with rain and blood, fists red.

Amidst all of that, what makes him pause is that Charles’s feathers are missing.

Then there's a loud, raging bellow and a mass against his chest, heavy and wide and strong, all strength and thick, corded muscle. His skull meets the ground the same time his back does, and all he can do is cough, heave, turn away from the knuckles that split his skin and cut beneath his teeth. Copper and salt and sweat and blood against his tongue, bile in his throat. His head rings and splinters and he scrabbles at the wet material above him, gagging violently.

When tearing at the shirt doesn’t work, he tears at the skin instead, down arms and against shoulders until they’re grappling and shifting, skin slapping, and Arthur gets a knee free. He slams it as hard as physically possible into Charles’s stomach, then keeps it there, digs in, lifts his hips and curls his arms around the other man’s neck.

He rolls until he can’t anymore, until he’s on top and victorious.

And then he’s not.

 _Again_.

He hisses into mud and rain slick leaves. Spits out the grime gathered in his mouth, between his teeth. Claws furiously at the ground with one hand and cries out at the pain in the other, twisted upwards and behind him, barely in the socket. His head feels like it's rocking in a boat again, stomach revolting, and he heaves and gags for the second time that morning. He digs the toes of his boots into the ground for some friction and screeches like a dying animal when all he does is slide and sink into the churned mess they’ve made of the earth.

Charles leans forward, lowering Arthur’s hand to press it against the small of his back. He wraps long fingers around the back of Arthur’s head and presses his face even further into the dirt, until he can barely move it at all.

Between one moment and the next, after a time Arthur can’t quite count right now, Charles’s mouth is there, right next to Arthur’s cheek, and before he can help it, Arthur shivers at the ghost of hot breath against his ear.

God he’s going to fucking kill this man. He’s going to tear him to _fucking shreds_. 

“You-”

Then the silence breaks. Against the squeal of tires, high and loud, and the rough churn of dirt beneath a braking car, the world they had built amongst themselves and the earth and the purveyor of all things bloody and primal shatters. 

Car doors start opening and feet start hitting the ground, scraping atop gravel. The hands on Arthur leave suddenly, almost disorienting in their speed.

“Hey!” Someone is yelling, and he’s pretty sure it’s Charles. “This is private property!”

Arthur blinks - 

\- and then there’s gunfire.

 _Huh._ That wasn’t there a second ago. 

His head feels a bit clearer, though, and the beat of rain on his skin is gone, replaced by a light drizzle. He pushes up onto his elbows, studiously ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he shifts his arm, and manages to leverage himself to a kneeling position

In an unexpected turn of events, the gunfire is gone by the time he makes it. When he looks up, however, it’s to see a person - Charles - on his ass, holster empty, with his own gun pointed at him by a stranger in a suit.

His mind hones in on the snap of a hammer, the tightening of a gloved finger around a trigger, and he moves. Faster than he’d thought he could. Fast enough to make the world spin. He hits a body just as a shot rings out, and he can’t tell amidst the white noise and the pain and the fist against his face, in his hair, slamming his head to the ground, if the bullet ever made it.

Everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: extreme violence, head trauma, head injury, manipulation, graphic depictions of gore and blood, violent threats, gun violence, physical violence, breaking bones, emetophobia, homophobic language, implied incest, derogatory language.
> 
> A/N:  
> So, this is the Arthur I imagine he actually was for most of his life, before redemption and before the player gets to control him. I've never actually played a low honor Arthur because I find it to be a) much too difficult and traumatizing to play, and b) not in character or in line with the premise of the story. However, we get introduced to Arthur when he's neutral honor, just on the edge of low honor. Outside of providing a fair game mechanic, this implies that the twenty years Arthur spent with Dutch were filled with him being either a neutral honor Arthur, or a low honor Arthur that began to change his ways even before we as the player got to decide. Since I hc neutral honor Arthur as a good person too stuck in his ways to break free, and a low honor Arthur to be a good person caught in a downwards spiral he can't break (tl;dr they're both HH Arthur with too much in the way), I decided to play with that a bit. Spoilers for how this ends up are below.
> 
> =====  
> SPOILERS  
> =====  
> Throughout the story, if all goes to plan, Arthur will be able to go from LH & NH to HH.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events as Charles knows them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the endnotes for trigger warnings and the author's note

Ji and Sheila Johnson are good neighbors. Good people too. Charles has only known them for two years now, after their strange and utterly unexpected encounter along the Canadian border, but they’ve been nothing but decent friends to him since. Helped him despite their own troubles with money and land and law. 

For a while they’d even let him reside on the farm and work the field. At least until he could find a real job with real pay. One that would better suit his skillset and his needs. One that would hopefully allow him to live on his own, a peace with which he had long grown accustomed, and missed dearly.

When he’d finally found a job out in Strawberry, though, a year into his stay, it had been difficult to leave them behind. Aside from the fact that they were clearly struggling, the Johnsons had also grown close to his heart. They were kind and thoughtful people, both with histories long and painful, yet they hadn’t let those pasts define them. They hadn’t let it stop them from helping others in need; from helping him.

During Charles’s time with the Johnsons, Ji had cooked - enthusiastically and often and everyday, no matter the weather or the time. They had made big roasts for dinner and small snacks to take into the sun for work. Prepared strange lunches and foreign lunches and lunches so stereotypically American Charles had felt the need to wear a flag when eating them. Made so many meals in such varied types and flavors and origins, always prepared with love and devotion.

And to every single one of them, Charles had been invited. A place had been set for him every single time. And with every meal, Ji had welcomed him with a big smile and an eager retelling of the food’s history, seating Charles next to Sheila as they took the opposite chair and talked until the food ran dry or the plates scraped clean.

It’s the food that makes a home, Charles had heard someone say years ago, back when times were tougher and they all wished for a settled life. He’d believed it then, but now Charles spends his time with this small family, happy and content to just be, and thinks that man had it all so very wrong.

It’s the people that make a home, and it’s Ji that makes the food.

The last day of his stay, Charles comes downstairs to a massive breakfast. An eclectic feast of fruits and meats and cheeses. There’s rice and tapioca and what Charles thinks might be dumplings. When he reaches the last step he can hear eggs and bacon being cooked as well, sizzling loudly on the ratty old stove as Ji tends to them. They’re humming tunelessly as they do so, but no less enthusiastically, dancing lightly along to a song Charles will never be able to hear. It’s like a switch has been flipped, and Charles knows he or Sheila won’t get through to Ji until every last piece is cooked to perfection.

He wants to tell Ji that it’s too much. More than enough, really, for any man let alone Charles. He can’t, of course, not until the meal’s done, but he doubts he will. Talking with food is what Ji does best.

And as Charles looks over the table of robust and diverse foods, all so unique and common and recently familiar - after a year of warm and happy shared meals around that same rickety table - he thinks Ji will miss him very much, and he can’t say with honesty that he doesn’t feel the same.

Sheila speaks to him in other ways. With words, most notably, but also with anecdotes. Hundreds of them. Enough to keep him awake at night sometimes, thinking of their messages and their meanings, their origins and (although he would never tell Sheila) their truthfulness.

During his first months, Charles had found the talking annoying. The words always came during periods of peace, in the quiet seclusion of flowers and plants and chattering wildlife. They always came when nature and he felt at one, wordless and weightless and calm. In his first months, he’d found her brash and abrasive, uprooting flowers needlessly and breaking the silence with ignorance. He’d found her presence intrusive.

Later, he’d realized that the world is what inspires Sheila, and what she loves most. So she talks. She talks about flowers as she bends them, picks them, details them with unerring accuracy within the confines of her book. 

She speaks of nature and color; of times when she lived in both, fully at peace and inescapably lonely. She speaks of what Charles knows, and so Charles finds himself speaking too. Of feathers and antlers and grand bison, scratched into his mother’s dearest wall of art. His words run wild with another’s for the first time in years, and he speaks of poultices and of hunting, of crowns and beads and carvings and stories, told near the fireplace, where he’d once felt warm and safe and comforted in the dead of the quiet night.

Sheila’s love of nature is louder than his. Brighter, filled with vivid blue skies and rainbow gardens and crying cardinals. His is muted and silent. Reverent, grown through with brambles and holly, gilded in eagle feathers and the soft brown fur of a doe. Yet he finds he understands her, in some small way, and her love for all the world has to give.

The bond he forms with Sheila is different than the one with Ji, though there are similarities. A root of affection that Charles wants to call family, but who is he to say?

On the day of his leaving, Sheila is there too. Past the table of extravagant foods and Ji’s chipper morning routine, the front door lies open. The sun's rays soak the table in good cheer, and the open windows do the same, letting in light and birdsong along with the bright colors of Sheila’s garden and the glow of honeyed fields.

Sheila sits just at the open door, on the top step of the porch, turning to beam cheerfully at him as he approaches. 

“Charles!” She exclaims, voice rough but high, so clearly happy to see him. It warms him in ways Ji’s food never can. That’s okay, of course, because Ji’s food fills him in ways Sheila’s flowers never could, either, and maybe that’s what family is. Maybe that’s what loving is. Charles couldn’t say, although sometimes he thinks that maybe now, after everything, he can.

Their last morning together is a memory he will cherish until his last days, however distant they may be. Leaving is more painful than he could ever have imagined. He isn’t going far, of course, but it feels like it.

He puts a phone in their hands the day he leaves, paid for by Rains Fall’s generous advance, and makes them promise to call him if there's any trouble - any at all.

They don’t. Not for a year. 

He still visits often, but mostly, during that time, he works. He gets to know his wise employer as well as his angry son. Gets to see the boy grow and question and fight. Gets to see a man weighed by life’s cruelty and inequality strive bravely to better the future in any small way he can. Eagle Flies has grand gestures and Rains Fall has little ones, yet neither is more or less significant than the other. Charles sees their strength and learns from it. There are none more admirable than these people, he thinks, and he is right.

Charles also meets the other people who live in the small town of Strawberry. Learns that it was once a bustling tourist trap, where the oppressive and disadvantaged alike would come to buy silly trinkets and gossip about city life. How nowadays tourist season brings a host of puffed up, pinned up, and roughed up visitors through the inns, but none so much as there used to be.

Rains Fall shows Charles the ins and outs of sales, and where previously Charles had only known how to make the wood carvings and tribal flutes, he now finds himself well versed - if still hesitant and inadequate - in the art of selling them as well.

It’s a simple life and a lonely one. Rains Fall and Eagle Flies are good friends, but they aren’t around all the time. The Johnsons call rarely, if ever, stuck in a time of corded phones and the internet’s absence. Charles realizes one day as he’s nicking detail into the surface of a rough, high priced piece of redwood, that he misses that feeling of family, however delicate it might have been. Just as he’d missed the solitude when wrapped in their warm embrace.

So when they call him a year after he’s left, worried and afraid and so distressingly unhappy, Charles goes to help. How can he not? These people, they’re all he has. And they’re _good people_ \- the best. Who don’t deserve to be hurt and taken advantage of by those with the most to lose and the least to give. Who would rather drag others to their level than risk rising above it.

He would protect this small, uneven family with his life, and he’s capable of it, if needs be. He always has been.

\---

He drives out to them as soon as he can, hours after Sheila phones him, voice loud and righteous, indignant one moment, then quiet and shaken the next. 

It’s been slow at the shop, especially with Eagle Flies helping, back from one of his many out of country protests. As a result, Rains Fall has allowed Charles as much time off as he needs, so long as he returns in time for the tourist season. 

“At least I can trust you will come back,” Rains Fall says, and Charles takes the joke for what it is, despite knowing Eagle Flies to always return when needed, no matter the worthiness of his cause elsewhere.

And then he’s got free time. Too much of it. Entire weeks are now at his disposal. So he grabs hold this opportunity before it slips away. With the blessing of Rains Fall, Charles packs quickly, efficiently, and leaves to protect the only stability he’s known for years.

He gets there mere hours later, and when his big, beaten car rumbles up the drive, Charles immediately notices Sheila. She’s curled up on the porch steps, shoulders heaving, and Charles has never been a man of bold emotions, but his heart aches for her in a way that’s so new and so painfully, memorably old. She looks wrecked, shivering and sobbing, hands covered in dirt and hair in disarray.

She glances up at the loud rumble of his motor, and her dark eyes are puffy from crying, face wet and plastered with stray gray hairs. She tries to smile, but it’s a sad, disappointing thing. There’s so sign of joy and happiness anymore, just cold, hollow misery. The stark and frankly unforgivable contrast is enough to incite a burning, vengeful kind of anger in him. 

He’s never wanted to hunt a man down before, not in the same way he does the predators of the wild, but right now Charles wants nothing more than to track this beast down - hunt him, shoot him, make him bleed. This is the only family Charles has now, and he’s not going to let it suffer for the sins of others.

He knows he can’t do that, not if he doesn’t want to bring heaps of unwanted attention and trouble to their doorstep. There are other ways of caring, though, besides senseless violence. Ones Charles isn’t as familiar with in any capacity, but that he’s willing to brave for these people. He can protect, remain stalwart - silent and strong. As he always has. He can provide and he can comfort - cook and shop and keep the house going through grief. He can be there for them in any way they need.

And, if the trouble comes to him, well - 

It will certainly wish it had stayed away.

\---

Charles’s bow is new and strong. 

His old one wore down a long while ago, and even before he could manage to replace it the thing had ended up snapped over the knee of an angry slaver.

His old bow had been a simple thing, made with a kind, loving memory over a long, capable piece of wood and a taut bowstring salvaged from old remains. The carvings down the length had been cut by his own small fingers, tucked deep into the forest, away from home and hearth and happiness. Birds and critters and silly little designs had been sketched shakily yet faithfully into the old, brittle wood. Words his mother spoke to him, not English or Spanish, but Something New, that she had just started to teach to him at the time, took their rightful places beside the childish drawings. Horribly inaccurate and grammatically incorrect, his mother would have told him had she been there, but copied with a passion deserving of them, if not entirely perfect.

He’d learned with that bow. Grown up with it, danced with it, played with it, shared it with his family in only the way a young child can, wanting his parents to have the best of his love. It had served him well, and it had been painful to let go.

For his new bow he has a different kind of fondness. Sentiment in its own way, in that this bow has survived much longer and holds the finished product of the long, laborious path he took to master his craft. 

The designs on his new bow are dissimilar to the old ones. For one, they’re accurate. When he brushes thick, callused fingers over the cuts he can read every word and recount every design - see the stories in the pictures and the voices in the words. The wood is the best of what he could find, strong but versatile, unbreaking but willing to bend. The wrap is worn leather and finely crafted metal.

It’s a work of art, and one he’s proud of.

He’s not so proud of his other weapon. His gun, a sawed off shotgun, that he’d stolen from the dead body of that very same slaver when he was a child. It’s stayed with him a long while; he could never quite seem to let it go. It has served its purpose - same as the rest, he supposes - but he tries to forget its presence most days, same as he tries to forget its many past uses.

In the end, he doesn’t use bow nor gun. He submits to something far more primal.

A week passes, slow and tense with anticipation. Nothing incredible occurs during that time, with the Johnsons holding their breath - waiting - and Charles mentally preparing. He’ll kill if he has to, but he’d rather not. The Johnsons...he knows they haven’t done good things in the past. He doesn’t know what exactly, but Charles has done much worse, that he’s certain of. If he kills, there’s no telling how they’ll react.

So Charles will try not to. He doesn’t want to, anyway. Hasn’t for a long time. He just wants this to be resolved peacefully. Wants his family safe and the yard clear of blood and brains and violence.

That doesn’t stop him from holstering his shotgun and leaving his bow ready at the door.

Then it’s the dawn of the seventh day. 

Charles joins the Johnsons in the living room. They both look worried, not at all strange considering the circumstances, but Charles knows they have no reason to be. He won’t allow anything to happen to them. He certainly won’t allow them to lose their livelihoods for some self serving criminal trying to play at god.

“What if he has a gun?” Sheila asks, gnawing on her thumb and pressing her shoulder to Ji’s own. They’re both seated on the only couch in the room, a sagging patchwork of cuts and tears and years of use, barely held together. Ji nods along with her, trying to smile comfortingly, clearly strained, and doesn’t speak a word.

 _If he has a gun, I’ll shoot him first,_ Charles wants to say _._ “I’ll be able to disarm him,” he says instead. Honesty has always come easy to Charles, but lying - when he has to do it - has never been a difficult task. This time he isn't so sure it works. He can see their disbelief clear as day. They worry, but he doesn’t want them to. They don't _have to_. If the man has a gun, he won’t live long enough to use it. Charles isn’t the fastest draw in America, but he’s fast enough.

“Well, if he tries to shoot you…” Sheila hesitates, uncertain.

Ji has no such compunctions. “Kill him.” 

Charles takes a startled breath, catches it, filters it slowly through his nose with the knowledge that they wouldn’t appreciate his assumptions, looks them over again and sees what he’d missed before. There’s determination in them both; anger and defiance - stalwart and unbending. He thinks, in that moment, that the Johnsons are quite capable of saving themselves.

They shouldn’t have to.

There’s noise from outside, close to the door. Charles sees a dark figure move in the corner of his eye, past the drawn curtains of the kitchen window. 

It’s time.

When he opens the door to face their aggressor, he sees exactly what he’d expected. A large man, at least 6 feet in height, broad and built like an ox. He’s got white skin, weathered rough and tan beneath a sun far more unforgiving than the one in these parts, and his movements promise violence the way his scars tell of it. A brute and a killer - or a brawler at least. Judging by the gun at his hip, Charles would bet on the former.

From what Charles can tell of his hair, it’s a blonde or a light brown, hidden under a worn cowboy hat. In fact, everything from his black, decades old bandanna to his scuffed brown boots appears worn. He looks like he came straight out of a midwestern movie. If it weren't for the 9mm and the diamond earrings, Charles would probably think so.

Perhaps it’s the confirmation of his expectations, or maybe just the size of the man in general, but Charles is left entirely unprepared for the speed with which he moves. Lightning quick, with a draw faster than Charles has seen in the best of shooters, the man has whipped around and pulled his gun. 

Charles freezes. Behind him, there’s a rustle of cloth as Ji and Sheila shuffle and twitch, breaths getting heavier with fear. He can feel two sets of eyes burning with worry at his back, and it’s a distraction he doesn’t need right now. Not when he’s let himself be put at such a disadvantage.

The man hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, though, so Charles takes a chance. He moves warily, afraid the brute has an itchy trigger finger, and creates that last barrier between himself and the safety of his home.

When the man speaks it’s with a thick southern drawl, rough and low and tinged with fury. It almost makes Charles fear for the peace he’s trying to build, yet in the same breath, the man lowers his gun and reholsters it. A show of trust. 

It’s enough to spark a flame of hope, that maybe they can resolve this without bloodshed - without the need for violence. So he introduces himself.

The man doesn’t seem to care much for it, and he doesn’t give a name of his own. Not that Charles expected him to, considering the nature of his profession, but it leaves them on unequal footing again - makes Charles distinctly aware of the tension and violence brewing in the air around the other, reminding him of a bull ready to charge, lowering its head in warning and churning at the dirt beneath with vicious hooves.

Then the man threatens him, and things quickly devolve from there. It’s faster than Charles can keep track of, faster than he can get a handle on and reign in. One moment they’re trading words beneath a bright sky, and the next they’re trading blows beneath the rain.

The man charges him like a bull, too. Snapping as if he’s seen the red flag. He’s lost amidst whatever fury hazes his eyes, and Charles finds himself lost to it just the same. 

Things become rough after that. The other man gets on top of him and the blows start raining down, so Charles claws at his face and tears at his skin and rubs mud at his eyes, uses his other hand to grip that pretty blond hair from the side and slam the man’s head to a rocky patch with a resounding crack.

Then Charles drags him back onto wet mud and ground leaves, wraps his hand around the man’s throat and presses heavily into the other’s chest before he can realize what he’s doing. The man thrashes and screams like a wild animal, tearing and clawing and kicking, ferocious and savage and utterly unrestrained. 

Then the body beneath him is throwing them both, a brutal, gut punching force of desperation and vengeance and offense, and that’s when things get the haziest. Charles has never been so angry, never felt so battered and protective, hot and wrathful, in his life. He collides with the man, beats him, holds him down, grapples at white skin slick with red and purple with pain, twists until he almost hears a pop, and yet the beast below him continues to struggle, almost feral in his frenzy. He scrabbles at the earth and yells out in pain and outrage and helplessness, and through the haze in his mind, slowly clearing, Charles thinks the other man might even be crying.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to push down. To reel in and restrain until there’s not a single movement left beneath him. Until there’s a long silence, filled only with harsh, shaky breaths and the patter of rain. The overcast is dark, and no shadows are cast by the trees, but the leaves rustle emphatically with the heavy winds. 

Charles catches a moment to calm himself. Takes breaths in a deep, soothing rhythm until he can blink the water out of his eyes and see straight. Then he presses himself flat along the heaving line of the other man’s back. He’s so close he can feel the bubble of rage captured beneath that fragile skin, now broken. 

He prepares himself to speak, to threaten. This man will never return, and neither will any other of his ilk. Charles will make sure of it.

“You-” he starts.

And then tires are squealing, cars are pulling up, and Charles jumps to his feet with sickening speed, rushing at whoever the hell these strangers are.

“Hey!” He yells to the first suited men out of their cars, heavily armed and clearly a threat, “this is private property!”

Then, before he can so much as pull his gun, the Johnsons are rushing out of the house. They’re panicked and yelling, Ji waving their hands at the strangers, menacing them away, and Sheila screaming for Charles. She’s got an arm pressed to Ji’s chest, as if to push them further from the danger, but she isn’t moving back either. 

Charles realizes why just moments later when a man in a suit strides out the front door with a gun in hand, trained on the Johnsons.

Cold dread grips him at the sight of it, tight and unmoving. Fortunately, no triggers are being pulled yet, and Charles is able to get closer without things taking a turn for the worse. When he gets too close some of the men turn to Charles and train their weapons on him, but he just holds up his hands and stops, steady. He’s still mostly out of range, but the rain has let up enough for him to hear some of what’s going on.

It’s threats. Lots of threats. These men speak quietly and calmly, accents indiscernible. No amount of style and sophistication is going to change the fact that they are criminals, though. They’re the same as the cowboy, just better dressed and far less good looking.

Hopefully, it’ll only stay threats. His experience tells him it’s unlikely, but maybe they’re just here to throw their weight around and come back later - to give Ji and Sheila a chance to prepare. It had happened once before, so Charles can’t entirely take the idea off the backburner. Maybe, nothing bad will happen. Maybe nobody will get shot today after all.

Relief swells light and dizzying in his chest when they start putting away their weapons. The Johnsons are safe.

Slowly, the men start backing into their cars. All except the one behind the Johnsons, whose gun still remains out and ready, pointed unwaveringly at the backs of their heads. Charles wants to steal it away quick and silent, disassemble the thing until it’s nothing but scattered pieces. He just wants this whole thing to be over.

Multiple engines start up, loud and disconcerting in the tense silence. Then the car at the back of the procession falls back first, followed closely by the second. 

And all of the men are gone. 

Except for one.

“You can put the gun down, now,” Charles says in warning, because he feels he has to. 

The stranger only shakes his head, smirking, and Charles knows it before he sees it. The intention to fire. On instinct, Charles pulls first, shoots, and hears a cry. The stranger falls back, clutching at his leg. It’s already gushing blood, but Charles can tell it’s just a graze.

“Get inside!” He yells to the Johnsons, fear and trepidation ripe in the air, “Go!”

They run faster than he’s ever seen them before. Even so, they both glance back for a second at the doorway, worry swimming in their eyes. Worry for him. He shakes his head at them, wordless, and twists in the air as another crack sounds through the silence. There’s a cut on his cheek where he knows the bullet missed. Heart thumping, he drops to the ground, pushes back, straightens, sights and fires out another shot. 

A frenzy follows. Someone screams, and it’s not Charles or the Johnsons, so it has to be the stranger. Which means he hit. He knows he did. 

Seconds later, cold metal collides hard and blinding against his cheek. He kicks out and hits something, rolls and braces a hand to the earth. Tries to push to his feet only to feel the whip of another blow, this time at the side of his head, in his ear. The impact staggers him.

He falls to his knees, blinks at the blood in his eyes, only made messier by his movement. Looks up through it to face his death. 

It’s his own gun.

That shotgun. That sawed off shotgun of mired history and sheer, horrid terror, grabbed and kept and cared for, despite it all.

He hates that fucking thing.

And then it’s gone. In a blur of movement too rapid for his pained eyes. One moment there and then the next...nothing. Nothing but rain so light he can barely hear the sound of it, whose meager drops still fall to his face in defiance of their end. Nothing but the sky, dark and broken by vivid, timid rays. The trees rustle as the grass does, as the cornfields do, as the cloth tied to the porch railing and the shirt on Ji's back does.

One moment, he sees a gun, then he sees a mass, thick of muscle and coiled tight with unbridled power. A bull and an ox. A stag with antlers wide, sharp, cutting. Bones of harsh, heedy might and long, wound force, caged and free in equal measure. He turns to look. Turns to see, but nothing agrees with him. 

He stands. Tries to. Fails.

Then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: extreme violence, head trauma, head injury, graphic depictions of gore and blood, violent threats, gun violence, physical violence, breaking bones, pistol whipping, implied slave trade
> 
> A/N  
> Please tell me what you think of the chapter guys! I know I'm not very good with fight scenes but I'm trying lol.  
> Anyways, here's some Charles POV! This type of pov switch, with a recounting of what I've already written through another character's eyes, isn't going to be very common. If I repeated every chapter with another from Charles's pov, we'd be here all day, but I figured the scene needed to be set, and there was a lot of information the reader needed to know before picking up Arthur's pov again. Hopefully it isn't too annoying to see all of this again! I tried to make it different enough to still be interesting. This fic is going to be largely Arthur's pov, but I won't shy away from Charles's as well. However, if I do it in the future it will probably be as a continuation of previous events, instead of a direct recounting of it.
> 
> **Listened to some songs while writing, if anybody's interested.  
> -Ch.1 - Arthur  
> Flesh and Bone by Black Math  
> Whispering by Alex Clare  
> See What I've Become by Zach Hemsey  
> -Ch.2 - Charles  
> Eternal Eclipse - Dawn of Faith (in the album Forgotten Odes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FTr73B4Wz0))  
> The Quality of Mercy by Max Richter  
> Start A War by Valerie Broussard


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur's not so good very bad day(s).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see trigger warnings and author's note in the endnotes

Arthur wakes first to a smell. A curl of shy humidity that makes him initially think _rain_. Then, quick as a strike, _painfurythundercloudsgunfire_ and he heaves, coughs, jolts fully awake as he rolls and falls onto hard, unforgiving wood.

“Oh!” A voice exclaims. Fingers brush his shoulders, light as feathers but trailing agony. He tries to hide from it. Whimpers a plea. They continue after him, harsh and relentless, pressing harder, returning nausea, and he screws his eyes further shut to block the pain. Feels bruised and beaten six ways to sunday. No clue which way is up and why his head ticks, ready to explode.

“Oh my,” that voice says again, an echo that makes his brain catch fire. He cowers away. Pained, wounded noises escape him, rough against his throat, and he tries to retreat from them too, shielding his head beneath an aching arm. 

There’s more murmurs, quieter this time. So many voices. They mesh into a morbid lullaby, worship at the jaws of sleep; reverent lures to it’s taunting hold. It haunts him silently from shadow’s inky edges. Seeps forth slowly, drawn by fervent whispers. There’s a hand against his arm. It’s warm with concern, his mind muddles, though the why and how of it escape him. 

_Hosea._ Come to take the cruel touches away. 

_Pa._ It has to be. 

It has to be.

The hands rock him, gentle and kind. He melts beneath the comfort and sinks blissfully into darkness.

\---

“Charles!” He gasps awake at the sound. Breathing heavy, eyes wide. His chest heaves with each inhale and he struggles to calm the racing thud of his heart. 

He flutters his lashes. Focuses. Tries to. Fails. Drifts away…

Snaps awake. Gasping again, pained. Blinks to set his mind. To make out something, anything, of what’s happening. Tries to take in his surroundings. Relaxes as his heart steadies, breathes in long and out for longer. Wants for something between his teeth. The burn of ashes and the smell of smoke.

There’s pale yellow above him. The ceiling, he guesses, but the thought scatters soon afterward. Light is there, too, from an open window at the edges of his sight. It rests on his face and makes his pupils hurt, but the curtains force his gaze to remain. They’re white and membrane thin, fluttering further into the room above him, guided by a light breeze. They’re hypnotic. Calm and delicate, twists of gossamer to brush the sun. 

Time slides away from him, and the movements soon become difficult to follow. His head hurts, sharp and itching and unreachable in a foaming wave that pushes at the inside of his skull. He turns his head aside, languid and slow, to keep the pounding away, but the world is already starting to contort and fade.

 _Charles_ , he thinks again, bleary. _Who the hell is Charles?_

His eyes are slits and his sight wobbles. He thinks of Charles, who he doesn’t know, and wonders what he dreamed of to bring such a name to his lips. His mind feels foggy with the weight of it, and he is grateful to let it overtake him.

\---

Pieces of awareness filter through the haze of sleep. In snippets and tidbits, the catch of voices and movements and feelings against the jagged edges of his wits.

_“Maybe we should have brought them to a hospital.”_

_“Is…’t safe?”_

_A breath against his face. Cool cloth pressed to his brow._

_“More money than we-”_

_A rough grip, turned gentle, the scrape of nails and a sigh._

_“Con....head...trauma...I think we-”_

_More cloth. Soft towels. The slide of water down his forehead. Hairline soaked._

_Whispers, quiet. Of wind. Of voices._

_A light breeze, brushing gently. Shivers down his body._

_The rustle of leaves - outside. Scuffs on wood floors - inside. Jeans brushing together, loud and often. Steps._

_“Do you have-!” “...inside! Look-!” over his head_

_Echoes of drops on a pool, fast and then slow, ringed over a bowl._

_“Soon…talk with…”_

_“Life. Saved...Maybe.”_

_Covers pulled. Warm, comforting weight against his chest._

_A sigh._

_Silence._

\---

When Arthur finally wakes up, his eyes are still swollen from the violence. They’re a lot better than what he remembers through the mires of his addled brain, but still bad enough to be painful when he opens them all the way. 

With the return of his sight comes the immediate assault of bright sun rays and a garish yellow ceiling. Grimacing, he turns away. Sees a closed window with drawn curtains. No voices outside. No screaming or shouts. No cracks in a wall once abandoned, still old.

This isn't his room. This isn’t home.

Arthur shuffles under the sheets on him, realizes with a panic that he’s covered in something foreign, and struggles to pull free, tearing and pushing and kicking until they’re gone. Dumped over the foot of the bed. There’s no frame there, only empty space, and through it he sees an end table and a wardrobe, both solid, worn oakwood along the same wall as his bed.

But it’s not his bed. No bed is his bed. Not even his bed is bed - the one at home - but he wants it more than anything right now. More than this one. 

There’s a door across from him, on the wall pressed against the skinny side of the wardrobe. He can go to it right now. He can leave. He can sneak out, grab his things, head back. Nobody would be the wiser. He just has to get from here to there. Easy-

He blinks, mind blank for a moment.

-except that he doesn’t know where he is. 

Is he still at-?

The Johnsons.

It hits him like a brick. Christ, is he still at the Johnson’s?! He’s not at a hospital, he realizes, and he’s not home. He barely remembers what happened after his fight with that man, that-

Charles.

Mr. Charles Smith. Him and the Johnsons and the fight and then...men in suits?

Arthur shakes his head, grunting, and rolls over with limbs much too big for the mattress. Curls against the cool air and regrets discarding the blankets, then resents himself for it. He should be better than this. He should be out there right now, collecting the money and knifing the smarmy bastards. He should be doing his _job_ -

God his head hurts. 

He presses a palm to it and forces himself to exhale through grit teeth, afraid he’ll forget how to use his lungs if he doesn’t. He shakes his head and the pain rattles, brightening and then dimming, lurking in the background like a large cat. He tries to think. Tries to make sense of things. 

How long has it been? Is Dutch worried? Will they come for him?

He swallows to combat the rising nausea, but the spit has gathered warm in his jaw - a mouthful. It runs down his throat thick and heavy and settles in his stomach like he’s inhaled a roasted chicken whole. He gags, fists at the sheet beneath him, and tightens his throat against the threat of bile. He swallows again to be rid of it and tries to ignore the lurch that makes in his stomach, the contents turning.

He inhales shakily and hates the tears in his lashes. When he breathes out he relaxes, but it’s only a fraction of what he’d hoped.

He needs to leave. He needs to get back to - 

Dutch. And the others.

Just as he’s thinking of moving, a click sounds out, sudden and loud, followed by a rush of noise - air and footsteps and voices - that has Arthur jerking his gaze to the doorway, startled. He can practically feel his pupils shrink into pinpricks at the too bright light that comes through. A sharp pain that makes him want to look away and cover his eyes. He grinds his teeth and refuses, glaring at the intruder with as much venom as he can muster.

“Oh!” Mrs Johnson cries out. Her eyes are wide as she takes him in, clearly surprised to see him awake, and he would be pleased with taking her so completely off guard if it wasn’t so obvious how weak she thought he was. “Oh...oh. Oh my.”

Arthur’s really beginning to hate that word. 

He presses his tongue to the backs of his teeth at the increasing nausea, pushes it all to the cobwebbed corners of his mind, opens his mouth to speak -

And retches, throat on fire and ribs flaring with agony. Tries to swallow, gags at the lurching, heaving turn of sour vomit that shoots up his throat. Falls forward and coughs out his stomach with an ear splitting retch, wet and scratchy and followed by sobbing, convulsing movements. His belly quivers and he grips the edge of the bed so tight his arms tremble. The needle in his brain has turned into a cursed railroad spike, and every rasping, rattling breath he manages to take between violent, tearing heaves pounds it further into his skull with the force of a jackhammer. It splits him open. Spills his guts. Shakes the water from his eyes and makes them burn from it.

“Oh!” Mrs. Johnson exclaims again, and he has just enough energy to resent her for it before the world becomes a sparking, fuzzing ball of pain and misery. Turning his body inside out, cramping spasms and throbbing limbs. Writhing, shaking, skin peeled back, sweaty and pale, to expose the black, congested remains of his heart. It’s poison. _He’s_ poison-

The world jolts. Movement. Swaying. Rocking. Shivering. Then everything is shifting, bright and heavy one moment and soothing the next. Everything blurs and he sinks. Collapsing inwards, small and shaky, to nestle into light fluff and silken touches. Muted and peaceful; soft blankets on chilled skin and quiet shushes. Murmurs alighting the back of his mind. 

He thinks he remembers this. From after the fight, when his body hurt more and he couldn’t open his eyes. Fingers brush gentle against his skin, except this time they don’t bring as much pain. He has no discernible memory to compare it to, but he knows it to be true. 

The fingers become a hand. Carding warm and comforting through his hair. He presses into the touch and hates that he does. Hates the fingers and person and the blankets. Hates it all.

Arthur hates a lot of things, these days. More than he used to. Maybe too many things. The thought is fleeting, barely there. A deer in flight. The graze of fur across his palm. Lost.

Not quite sleeping, he has a lot of fleeting thoughts. 

Every time he swallows his throat feels scraped raw, like somebody took a cheese grater to it. He wonders if it’ll heal right. Wonders if he wants it to. Arthur’s voice has always turned people away from him. If not for the words then for the accent, and if not for the accent, then for the tone. Sometimes he hates his voice, too. Hates speaking. Hates seeing other people hear him speak.

Arthur hates a lot of things.

\---

Waking up the next time around is not a pleasant experience. Not that any of the other times seemed to be, either. 

At this point Arthur thinks that he might just have to give up sleeping altogether. The aching in his head has barely gone down, throbbing in obstinance despite his supposed ‘healing’ rest. In the grand scheme of things, sleeping has done jack all for him. Smoking has probably helped him more.

He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face, groaning at the scratch of stubble and the way his skin flakes. He tries desperately not to think about what his hair must look like right now. If the rest of him is any indication, it must be a sight. His lids are gummy and stuck together, itching something fierce, and his mouth tastes like a rodent died in it, lips chapped enough to bleed when he moves them. Every part of his body hurts, light and muscle deep and relentless, like he’s just climbed a mountain after spending a month in bed. Except that he’s also covered in bruises.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to get out of bed, let alone collect a debt.

His mouth dries at the thought, and he tries to swallow down the chalkiness of his throat. Ends up turning with a cough that catches at the back of it.

He struggles for a while, hacking violently, and ends up pushing onto his elbow so he can breathe. The coughs just keep coming, seconds turning to minutes as they take their time subsiding, and by the time the fit is nothing more than a clearing of the throat, Arthur is breathless with relief and ready to praise whoever invented lungs as well as the easy use of them. Even so, he feels wrecked from it. He was already tired enough to sleep for weeks and now he’s pulled this stunt - made things so much worse. 

He wants to leave and he wants to lay down. 

He wants to get out of here and never return, forget the damn money. He’ll rob some poor fool on the way back if he has to. 

He wants to sleep too, though. Aches with the need to press between the warm sheets and the lingering memory of kindness. To let the world slip away and return to it some other time.

Instead of doing either, because Arthur truly is a miserable halfwit, he ends up hesitating there for a moment. Elbow sinking into the flimsy mattress and head hanging, hushed. 

With his ears away from the pillows, clearing bit by bit at his careful movements and the return of blood, Arthur is able to catch the faint sound of voices outside his room, further down what he thinks might be the hallway. He can’t make out what they’re saying, but he doesn’t have to. They’re getting louder, making their way towards him until they’re right there, clear as day, with only a thin piece of wood between him and them.

“It wouldn’t be wise,” someone is saying, voice deep and soothing. Charles. Feet shuffle against the wood flooring during a moment of quiet. Somebody brushes against the door, only briefly, but the scrape echoes in Arthur’s small haven. After some more shuffling - more little pushes against his door - Charles is speaking again. “He’s nothing but a thug. A paid enforcer, probably a killer. This man is dangerous.”

Usually, words like that sound good. They sound right. Pieces fallen perfectly into place - Van der Linde’s most trusted enforcer, ever the good son. Dutch says it like it’s something to be proud of, and Arthur knows it is. He’s lived it his whole life and he’s never been more sure of anything.

This man, though. He says it like it’s a curse. He speaks so calm. So knowing. The words fall from his lips like facts, same as they have from any other who speaks them, yet they sit hollow in Arthur’s stomach, stale in his mouth. They don’t sound the same. Make him feel strange in his skin, and he shakes it off with a low growl, furious for the doubts he had almost started to think.

Arthur knows Charles is wrong. Whatever he’s implying beneath the pretty words. Whatever Arthur has gleaned but can’t quite hear that sits so badly with him, that creates these almost doubts, Arthur knows this man is wrong about it. 

He’ll get the money. He’ll rob these people blind. He’ll take their home. He’ll take their money. Their food. Everything. He’ll kill this man, so clearly an enemy of the gang - so clearly against Dutch - and he’ll return home victorious.

And Dutch will never find out about the extra week. Or how he’d tried to talk instead of fight, think instead of act, when he has no place doing so. How he’d holstered his gun instead of shooting it, after everything he’d been taught. Everything he’d been told. How desperate they were…

Dutch will never find out because Arthur will bring back double the money. Triple. He’ll scour the roads from here to the city and back again until he’s got enough to make Dutch proud, and Dutch will never find out that when the fight did come, Arthur against Charles, fists and muscle and strength and everything he was good for...

...Arthur lost.

\---

The conversation moves away from the door at some point, taken elsewhere or ended, Arthur isn’t sure. He don’t much care neither. He’s got other things on his mind.

Like finding his gun. 

They would be stupid to put it in his room, but maybe it’s still close by. In the house somewhere. Or maybe outside, fallen to the mud when he and Charles had wrestled. He doesn’t know for certain. All he knows is that he needs to get out and look for it. 

Only Arthur’s not so sure he isn’t a prisoner here, and he’s willing to take his chances with the friendly old couple who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but not so much with the big capable man they’ve got roaming the house like a docile puma. Not when Arthur’s in this state, head still hurting and body put through the shredder. A patchwork quilt of purples and yellows and swollen flesh, head cracked and bandaged. Dressed in a large old shirt that isn’t his and the mud caked remains of his pants. Shoeless and beltless and weaponless.

It makes him sour even to think it, but Charles would be able to kill him right now without even a lick of trouble. Hell, Jack probably could, little runt though he is.

So Arthur paces, fingers itching for pencil and paper. Anything to keep his thoughts straight. To sketch out curtains of dragonfly wings and looming figures in the doorway. To mark the world as something solid, not imagined. His mind still feels so fuzzy and he hates it. Hates how hard it is to think sometimes.

He tries to plan, but even without the headache, that’s always been more Dutch and Hosea’s thing. Though lately it’s mostly been Dutch’s. Besides, they bring him in often to help out, but only ever to take sides or talk capabilities, never to do much planning. That’s for people who are smart enough to pass elementary school, Arthur reckons. Not for some big lout like him, who’d not even gotten halfway through second grade before he was pulled out for “homeschooling”. 

His dad sure did have a way with teaching. Fingers in pockets instead of following the lines of a book. Punishments of fists and harsh words and breaking bones - and that’s only what those that caught him had done, let alone what his father did, with and without reason. Though there had always been a reason, however small. Always something to disappoint. Always a line drawn in the sand that hadn't been visible before, only ever shown to him after he’d crossed over.

He knows he’s crossed a line with Dutch. Dutch just don’t know it yet. Maybe, if Arthur does things right from now on, he never will. Maybe he can just...step back over. Forget this ever happened.

He’s never lied to Dutch before, though. Even the thought of it makes him nervous. He’s dug himself into a hole with his stalling and his other failures. But if Dutch finds out about this, too - the hesitation, the _lying_ \- that hole will be twice as deep, dug by Dutch’s own hands. Arthur won’t ever crawl out of it.

Yet if he brings back what’s owed and more, no one suffers. He can fill the hole back up before it ever gets too deep. Money’s all the same in the end, no matter where it came from. Dutch doesn’t need to know the whole history of it, only that he has it now.

A week later than he’s supposed to.

Arthur falters, a split second hesitation as he turns to keep walking, and his foot scrapes the floor, catching on rough wood. He stumbles, thrown violently from his thoughts, and knocks his knee against the end table as he does, the sound reverberating so loud the low hum of conversation outside his door ceases.

 _You witless wretch._ This is what he deserves for going about thinking like that. He should have just waited until nightfall and slit Charles’s throat like any reasonable person.

Footsteps approach quickly, heavy and solid and most definitely Charles. Both the Johnsons are small people, light of weight and short in height, and the clothes they wear aren’t anywhere near goth enough or punk enough to make such noises.

Arthur tenses and backs away from the doorway, realizing only halfway through that he’s made himself look like a cornered animal. He scowls bitterly. Steps forward again and crosses his arms, rolling to the balls of his feet, muscles tight. 

He can still fight. He can still hold his own. He’s not as weak as these people think he is, coddling him and whispering to him and petting him like he can’t handle a little bit of pain. Like they pity him for losing; for letting himself get so out of sorts.

Next time, Arthur won’t lose. Next time Arthur will beat Charles so badly his knuckles will break across that pretty fucking face. He ain’t a fucking child no more, wet behind the ears and shaking at the knees - all pitiful, helpless fear. He’s a thug and a thief and a murderer; killed better men for less. Brutally and quickly, fists and fury and bullets, knives in the dead of night and fingers ‘round throats. All of them threats.

He’ll kill this one just the same.

The footsteps reach his room, hard thuds loud against the wood paneling, and Arthur expects them to keep going. Expects the door to fly open, splinter in. Expects to see a large figure in the doorway, gun in hand. Anything. So Arthur coils, shoulders curling, hands dropping loose and ready at his sides. Prepared to strike.

Nothing happens.

There’s only rustling. The footsteps have cut off abruptly, right outside the door, and Arthur can hear small noises - breaths in large puffs, soft shuffles. Then a shift, as if someone is leaning closer. 

A small knock pushes into the quiet of the room, prodding at the tension, not quite cutting through. Not quite invading.

“Are you awake?” Charles asks through the wood, voice low enough that it wouldn’t have woken Arthur had he been sleeping. 

Arthur has to blink against the suddenness of it all. “Um,” he says stupidly - loudly - in a way sure to grab the other man’s attention. Then immediately regrets it when he realizes he could have pretended to sleep. 

The tension snaps suddenly, the barest of whispers, released in one extensive, angry breath as he fumes. Has he always been this easy to catch off guard? To take advantage of, knock senseless with mere words?

Arthur wishes violently that Charles _had_ come in here, just so he could put his fist in his teeth. Admittedly, that’s probably why Charles hadn’t. The bastard.

There’s a long silence, as if Charles is waiting for him to continue speaking, but Arthur remains firmly close lipped. He’s not going to be the one to talk first, especially not after his previous blunder. Instead, he studiously examines the dresser and the peeling wall paint, waiting for Charles to talk through the wall at him.

Except that Charles is apparently just as stubborn, because he doesn’t say a thing either. So they stand there, on opposite sides of the door, bullheaded fools, as the seconds tick by excruciatingly slowly.

This is exactly the kind of thing Arthur is bad at.

One second in and he’s already looking at something else. He fidgets his way through the next five seconds. Starts bouncing on his feet mere moments afterwards and is about ready to rush the door when a half minute rolls around. More silence stretches on, mocking and infuriating. He picks at his nails, glances around for a clock, checks the height of the sun, considers bashing his head in or punching a wall. Then, finally, just as he thinks he actually might start doing so, the minute mark passes and Charles speaks again. 

“Your bandages need to be changed,” he says - simple, easy. His voice is just as calm as before, seemingly unbothered by Arthur’s reticence and the minute of terse silence. Arthur grinds his teeth at it.

“Let me go,” he growls at the door, voice thick with anger, “now.”

Charles sighs, a soft thing clearly not meant for Arthur’s ears. “You’re not a prisoner here.”

“Then open the door,” Arthur huffs, fists clenched and tensions returning fast, “step _aside_. Let me past.”

“And you would leave? No money and no violence?” His tone isn’t so soft now, turning skeptical and hard.

“The hell do you care? These ain’t your people and it ain’t yo’ business!”

“They are!” His voice cracks like a whip, anger and defense and steely fury. This man is the one Arthur fought. The one who’d slammed his head to the rocks and flung him to the ground. The one that was big, broad muscle; a sawed off shotgun at his hip and hands of vicious, easy, cold competence. “They are my people, and you will not hurt them. You will not take from them. I won’t allow it.”

Arthur closes his eyes against the images of Tilly and Karen and Mary-Beth. Of Sean, loud and rambunctious. Of Jack, quiet and sincere, so innocent. Of Dutch’s uplifting words and the strums of Javier’s guitar. Of Hosea, kind and warm, smarter than the lot of them put together; and John, dumb and rash and the one person Arthur ever had the chance to grow up with. To get to know faults and all. 

He tries not to think of singing, laughter, happiness. Fireside gatherings and mischievous outings and the fear of losing them. His friends. Family. Focuses on something - anything - else to take his mind off it. 

“ _Allow_ it?” He hisses, eyes flying open to glare once more, because this is not his family. This is Them. This is Other People. People who aren’t his and for who he does not care. “You ain’t my people neither! Who the hell are you to _allow_ me anythin’?”

“You have a people, then?” Arthur freezes at the words, skin chilling and throat tightening. He feels dizzy with the sudden wash of dread. “You belong to a group? Who are they? Who loaned to the Johnsons?”

The words. They had just slipped out. People. His people. A group. Dutch’s group.

Dutch is going to be livid when he finds out. There’s no hiding this. Arthur has to tell him everything, now. Or he has to kill Charles. He has to do something, at least. And fast. He has to - 

Will Hosea be angry?

He clenches his eyes shut again. Sucks in a sharp breath against the spike of pain in his head. Nothing’s been the same since the mountains. Since the cold. Since leaving there and coming here and dragging their ragtag group along muddy trails and abandoned roads to the form of a rotting mansion they’d been too desperate to call anything other than home.

It had been bad. Real bad. Three people died. Three of their family. Rough beyond words. Bad didn’t begin to cover it.

Then they’d finally settled, though. Finally recovered and moved on and moved up in the world. Some comfort had been reached, however small.

Until now. Until Arthur had come in with his big mouth and his ugly accent and used his damn stupid words _again_ to ruin what little safety they had left. And he has to do something about it. _Needs_ to do something, but the words clog in his throat and choke him. 

What would Dutch do? What would Hosea do? 

_Kill him_. Deflect.

“I’m hired gun,” he says it before he can think, quick and empty from his lips as the conversation he’d overheard pops into his mind. It sounds believable enough. “Don’t need no family and don’t much care who’s paying, so long as they come through in the end.”

There’s another silence, this one shorter. Then, “you’re a terrible liar.”

Arthur has never wanted to hit someone so much in his life. “Just let me out o’ here you big dumb lout! The fuck did I ever do to you?!” Aside from hit him, kick him, break his ribs. Terrorize his family or friends or whatever the hell they were.

Charles scoffs in disbelief, and yeah, Arthur can’t argue with that. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Then a latch clicks, and he leaves. 

The lock.

Oh.

—-

Nobody else comes to visit for the rest of the day, and Arthur slowly goes crazy inside his little room. It isn’t even a bedroom, not really. It looks like a modified closet. A small rectangle able to fit a bed, end table and dresser all along the wall with the window. The rest left empty so people could actually have space to walk around.

It’s maddeningly bare. There’s not even a pencil or a single sheet of paper around. No magazine he can steal away to doodle in the margins. No books to read or pictures to look at. Nothing but clothes and furniture.

The window is too small to crawl through, the lock on the door is much sturdier than he gave it credit for, and there’s only one entrance to the room. He wishes he had tried to leave while he still had the chance. Maybe they wouldn’t have even cared if he’d walked right out.

Then again, maybe the Johnsons would have had Charles hunt him down. They seem like nice people now, but it’s them you’ve got to watch out for when the goings get tough. Meanest bastards he ever met, nice people.

Hidden away and restless, unable to do anything but think and not think, every pain in his body feels amplified. He tries everything he can to ignore the hunger that’s eating away at him. Fiddles with the hem of his shirt, too big even for his shoulders, and twists his fingers together when he gets tired of it. His stomach rumbles loud enough to startle him, and he scowls down at it, kicking at the floor from where he sits on the bed.

He wants to exercise. Shoot something. Run laps. Do anything. If his body didn’t feel like it had been raked over coals he probably would. Instead, he has to content himself with sitting here, complacent and weak and waiting, desperate for a smoke.

He wonders how long he’s been here. Has it been long enough for them at home to notice? Would they do anything about it? Could they?

Not for the first time, he wishes he hadn’t kept his week-long delay for the Johnsons a secret. Then maybe people would know where he was. That it was a job he hadn’t returned from and not a night out at the bar. 

Would they still come for him if they knew? He wants to think they would. He does a lot for the gang. Enough to make him valuable at least. Then again, what use is an enforcer gone soft?

But they’re not just a gang, they’re a family too. Surely that means something to them.

It means something to Dutch. Dutch would come for him. 

If he knew, Dutch would still come for him.

Why had Arthur ever doubted him? He’d probably have understood if Arthur told him. Probably would have agreed. Dutch isn’t heartless. He’s not a monster. He’s family.

God, what a fool Arthur’s been. What a goddamn fool.

\---

Another knock comes late that same day. It’s almost dusk when it happens, and Arthur’s been drifting to sleep on and off for hours. His head feels a bit better as he blinks awake to the sound, and he’s surprised to see that it’s Mr. Johnson who opens the door. All surprise is dashed immediately as soon as Arthur’s gaze falls to the plate of food in the man’s hold. His mouth waters at the sight of it, and he has to hold himself back from lunging - from greedily snatching his chance at hope and relief and strength away from the cruel hands of his captors.

He forces himself to stay still and pressed against the bed as Mr. Johnson enters the room. He approaches warily, but Arthur’s much too hungry to risk attacking the man. Of course, the shadow of Charles over the man’s shoulder might also have something to do with it, but Arthur mostly tries to ignore him. He thinks he should be happy they’re afraid; that they think he’s dangerous. That losing so badly and acting so weak hasn’t made him completely soft, but he’s too tired and too hungry to muster much more than a small inkling of acknowledgement.

Right now he just wants to eat. 

Mr. Johnson comes to a stop in front of him, hesitating for just a second. It’s only a moment. A small, simple movement. A slight pause. But it’s enough. Arthur’s mouth runs dry, limbs going numb with pure panic. What if the food isn’t for him? 

Then Mr. Johnson speaks, and it’s like Arthur’s been dunked in ice water. “What is your name?” he asks, voice firm, still holding the plate.

Arthur shakes his head, throat tight, and tries to remember where he is. Beneath the rabbit of his heart and the rush of noise in his ears, his head feels full of _somewhere else_.

_Don’t show weakness. Don’t let them see how much they’ve affected you._

“I don’t have a name.” The words feel like lead on his tongue.

“Do you not have parents?”

Arthur blinks. “What?”

“Does your head still hurt? Can you remember what year it is? Let me check-” and Arthur’s mind blanks, vision narrowing. Sees the man move - toward him and away. One hand coming at him and the one with the food leaving. Pulled back.

His chest tightens, heart rockets to his throat, mind aflame, _needwantplease._ He rears back, away, _nopleaseimsorryanythingillgive -_

-and lunges.

He grabs flesh, the skin of a hand, digs in, wrenches the food to his chest. _Relief._ Blood beneath his nails and then a weight strikes his ribs, steals his breath. Forces his arms back, grabs at his wrists, and Arthur kicks out, panic and fear and hunger. He falls, hits the streets, feels grit on his skin, hands on him, big and rough and bruising. Cries out, kicks again at the weight on his chest. Tries to breath but his lungs are gone, his chest filled with brick and bone. 

“No!” he gasps, voice breaking with tears, “Please. I’m sorry. Please, no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m..s.” Heaves and chokes, cries. “So-Pl’s. I’m s-” Gags on the next sob that shakes him, struggles against the invasive fingers, curling and holding and sliding, wrestling him to the ground. Killing him. “Nuh-ho. No. No! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _Please._ ” _Pleaspleasepleasepleaseplease -_ he twists, screams, lashes out and hits bone. 

Then the hands are gone. The weight lifted. He shoots backwards, a rubber band sent flying, scrabbles and kicks at wood and cloth until his back hits a wall, digs into a wooden post. Huddles in, brings his knees to his chest, sobs wracking his frame, shaking, pleading, protects his head and cringes away from the blows he knows are coming.

Except they don’t. Nothing happens. No people, no punches, no kicks or unwanted hands. Seconds tick by, slow and quiet, with no pain. He shudders through his breaths until they calm, and though his face is wet with them, tears have stopped leaking from his eyes. 

His stomach rumbles - resounding in the small room - and memory returns to him in a rush. _Hunger._ The Johnsons. Charles. Attacking. Panicking. _Crying_.

Shame floods him. He really is pathetic.

A floorboard creaks, and Arthur tenses, quailing, pushes away, back to the wall. _Knows_ he doesn’t have to. Does it anyway. Feels a gut turning revulsion at his own weakness. At _showing it_.

Steps approach, loud and telegraphed. Big feet, leather boots. Terror shoots through him at the larger form he knows is towering above him. He’s sick with it, and he has to swallow down the sour taste of fear that’s gathered on his tongue. 

No blows come, though. Or words. The figure stays at a safe distance, out of kicking range, and lowers something to the ground in front of Arthur’s eyes. The ceramic plate makes a small clunking noise as it comes to a rest, and then the feet are backing away, still slow and wary. As if he’ll lash out; hurt them when he can barely so much as stand.

Bitter resentment wells in him, fast and invasive, leaking through the cracks of his mind, dripping like acid to the black lump of his heart, and he thinks that he should. He should rip them all apart. Take all the food. All the money. Flee while he has the chance. Never look back.

He blinks away the vision of another house, so long ago. The ache of starvation and thin, bony limbs. Another boy at his side, sickly, needy. _Please, Arthur._ He clenches his eyes shut against it, lashes wet and sticking, and wills it all away. Wills it to the black shadows and the peace. He wants no part of it.

When he comes back to the world, it’s to darkness. The door is closed; nobody else around. The only light in the room sits on a plate of food, silver from the night. His stomach cramps when he sees it. He rushes at the food, eager, heart thrilling with excitement, and practically inhales it all before anybody can take it. It’s all tasteless in the end, potatoes and meat and some other things. He could care less.

His mind is fuzzy after he finishes eating. He thinks he should probably be upset about something, but the bed looks so tempting. Soft and downy. The floor had been so uncomfortable.

He falls onto it, arches his back, rolls and rolls again. Then rolls another time, nuzzling the soft sheets. He burrows his head beneath the pillows and hums contentedly. 

The next time sleep takes him, he is full and happy and muddled. Nothing is wrong with the world and he knows all will be well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic depictions of injury recovery, emetophobia, head trauma, ptsd flashbacks, panic attacks, references to past abuse, references to starvation, non-consensual drug use, fear of punishment, unhealthy relationships, violent thoughts, unintentional misgendering, assault, thoughts of murder, negative self talk, self hatred, negative self esteem, mental trauma, mental breakdown, extreme mood shifts, referring to trauma reactions and temporary mental disabilities as weak/pathetic/pitiful, abuse apology, referring to own past trauma/abuse as something that was deserved/something that was ‘let happen’
> 
> A/N  
> It’s the whump chapter! Yes they did drug him lol.  
> This chapter is strange in tone, I will admit, and I hope it didn’t throw anybody off! There’s a lot that factors into things, but mostly the strangeness is because Arthur’s recovering from a severe head injury and concussion. Not to mention he's recalling bad memories, worrying about Dutch, and stressing about literally everything right now. It’s just a whole mess, honestly, but I hope you guys like it. I might end up doing Charles soon just because Arthur’s the Literal Worst unreliable narrator here. He has no clue what’s going on, he’s misreading everything, and whatever’s not a direct result of his dumbassery is in fact a direct result of his head injury. So he’s been stripped of the only Common Sense Brain Cell he possesses lmao (it was a gift from Hosea). Don’t worry he’ll get it back eventually.
> 
> I also wanted to thank everybody who's shown their support for this story. It really means a lot to me, especially considering this is like my second ever fanfic and my first fic in rdr2. I'm excited to be writing this, and if anybody has any recommendations or comments or questions, I would love to hear them!
> 
> Songs Listened To:  
> -Black Sea by Natasha Blume  
> -Let Me Down Slowly by Alex Lightwood  
> -Free by Tommee Profitt, SVRCINA


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything has to rise before it can settle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the endnotes for trigger warnings and the author's note

Arthur comes to the moment his eyes open, immediately blinded by the light above and muzzy enough to stare at it for several minutes. Nightmares echo along the muted edges of his sleep addled haze, but with the sun on his face and blankets pressed against his skin they feel insignificant, not worth chasing.

He blinks lethargically, vision clearing and wits returning with the passive indolence of the ignored and neglected. His head still hurts, but it’s a shallow throb now instead of a piercing hot poker, and his mind doesn’t burn with his thoughts as it once had. Though despite the lack of pain his memories still remain jumbled, nearly indecipherable. His recollection of events comes as slowly as his rise to awareness.

He recalls mud and blood first. Then the Johnsons. He’s still at their house, he realizes. The same yellow ceiling, open window, worn furniture. He remembers Charles, too. The big man he’d fought, the one with dark skin and eagle feathers and soothing voice, who’d sworn his protection of the Johnsons. Those are the important memories. The large ones. He knows some of them, but not nearly enough.

He also remembers short tidbits of other things - smaller things. Unimportant things, he thinks, but he doesn’t know enough about them to be sure. They come and go in a kaleidoscope of colors, disjointed and confusing - splintered. He recalls a latch clicking, a plate dropping, panic and fear, anger and indignation. He recalls something of Charles, who he spoke to in one of his less clouded moments. Yet he can’t make out the man’s face at the time. Forgets if he ever saw it.

There are a lot of small things to add to the big ones, but it still isn’t enough - not truly - because mostly, all he remembers is hurt. The split and pulse of his skull, a sear in his throat, the ache to his bones and muscles, spread over his limbs.

They hadn’t harmed him. He’s pretty sure of that. Yet he can’t leave. That he knows for certain.

What he doesn’t know is what they want from him. Do they want the debt forgiven? Strauss to back off? Do they want information? To wait until he’s healed again, well and relaxed, and make him suffer all over again? They don’t seem like the type of people, but Arthur can’t ever be too sure. He’s thought the same of others, too, and lived to regret it. The Johnsons have every reason to want him in agony. This could all be a ruse. Safety and protection given only to be stripped away. Fleeting touches of dignity and fullness to make the humiliation and starvation that much worse.

But he’s stronger than them. He’s the Van der Linde’s enforcer - killer and brute. He’s walked into worse situations and out again covered in blood not his own. He can take on a couple of innocent farmers and a small town bodyguard. He can fight.

Except that he can’t. 

It settles warm and sickly in his throat and under his ribs. That knowing, heavy dread as he tries to move - to stand - and his arms crumple beneath his weight, legs folding. He pushes himself off of the bed and collapses to his knees beside it, shaky, breaths uneven. His vision roils, the world shifting, and his stomach lurches. He gags and presses a trembling fist to his mouth, tries to push himself up with the forearm braced against the mattress, and the movement makes him lightheaded, dizzy to the point of blacking out. 

His knees thump against the floorboards again as he doubles over, forehead pressed to the ground and arm folded over his stomach. He tries to make the world calm down. Feels his mind rocking like he’s on a ship. Everything is white and ringing, air pushing at his skin, earth rising against him. 

Something scrapes behind him, faint in the rush of his ears. Then sound returns to him all at once, clapping like thunder. Metal hits wood, something ricochets, and thuds echo in the cavern of his skull like footsteps.

“He’s awake,” someone says, and it’s louder than he knows it should be; makes him jolt like he’s been struck. Fingers and then palms hit his shoulders, sliding down, then around, prodding and feeling. His skin rises in protest and he jerks away from the latch of fingers on his shirt, brushing against his ribs

“His stomach is fine,” another voice says as the touches pull away. It distorts strangely, loud and then quiet and then loud again before diving to a hush beneath a wave that drowns out the world.

“Head?” Someone else asks, muffled as though through a press of water. He hates it the most. With it are more fingers, more touches like ice and shame to skate up the back of his neck. 

Arthur exhales in surprise, flings his head aside to avoid them. The fingers follow, determined, so he skitters sideways, rolls, whips his head again, first to the left then forward. The world goes white for the second time, a strange brilliance like fireworks that spot before his eyes. 

A touch takes advantage of the opportunity and glides again up his neck, through his hair, not tugging or invasive. He relaxes into it. Tilts back into the roll of padded flesh against his scalp. These fingers are thicker than the others, bigger but lighter, with a grace like fur and feathers and clouds in the sky. They cradle and push, just slightly, a question instead of a demand, and he tilts at their behest so they’ll stay.

Then his head is tilted again, asked to, and he moves too sharp, sparking the air with explosions. 

The whiteness overtakes him.

His sight returns in what feels like only a few seconds, but he’s on the bed again, stomach down and face smashed on top of a mess of pillows. He has no idea how long it’s truly been, but he feels the same smog of tiredness that comes with hours of sleep.

Memories filter in, slow and plodding - reluctant - and Arthur groans in frustration, letting his eyes close again as awareness returns for what has to be the hundredth time. He’s tired in a new way, now. Tired of having to remember every time he opens his damn eyes, tired of feeling this relentless, hounding pain in his body and his mind. Tired of having nowhere to make it all go away besides a bed and the lure of unconsciousness.

Arthur’s been injured before. He’s hit his head before; been hit before. Nothing has ever gotten to him this badly. Nothing else was ever quite like this. Is it because he’s weaker? Has something changed? He’s older now, more world weary. Can age really affect that much? Or has Arthur lost something he hadn’t realized was missing? 

Maybe he has gone soft.

Or perhaps it’s just Charles. The bastard’s built like a shit brickhouse. Arthur reckons anybody slammed into the ground three times in a row by him is bound to get some form of concussion.

Arthur isn’t supposed to, though. He’s the one that gets back up. That walks it off. That keeps on going, unaffected - stalwart protector and provider. Always. 

Always.

He sets his jaw and determinedly pulls his arms to him, gets them under his chest, braced to the bed, and pushes with all his might. He’s going to do this. He’s going to fight back. He’s getting back to his family if it’s the last godforsaken thing he does, and he’s going to have money when he does it.

Arthur ignores the weary tremble in his limbs and the sweat gathered on his brow; the wheeze of breath and leap of pain in his head. Tells himself Dutch would want this. That Dutch would say he was stronger than this, better than this. That the work doesn’t stop because he needs a break; that the enemy won’t take one neither. 

Arthur remembers when Dutch had praised him for his perseverance all those years ago, whatever the hell that word meant. How he’d had to go ask Hosea to describe it to him and Hosea had told him it meant stubborn tenacity. Whatever the hell _that_ meant. How he’d looked it up later, a tight ball underneath a shelter of blankets with a flashlight in hand, and learned it meant he was strong and dedicated; learned it meant his loyalty was so powerful he could push through anything and make Dutch proud.

Arthur hears Dutch’s words like he’s right there saying them, stuck to Arthur’s mind like glue. Knows he has to get out of here. That he has to get money back to camp. How long has he been gone? Was the rest of the money enough to keep them alive while he wasn’t there? What if they needed more money or more protection - what if they’d been attacked - while he was elsewhere? Piddling about and sleeping the days away like a worthless, selfish piece of muck. They could need him right now, and he’d be here, withering to nothing, relaxed while they suffer.

Arthur clenches his teeth at the thought and squeezes his eyes shut, rising and practically throwing himself off of the bed. He stumbles as his legs cry out in pain and his ribs protest violently, but he doesn’t fall. Instead he tenses until it hurts and staggers to the door, turning the handle and growling when it doesn’t budge. Arthur rattles at it angrily, then steps back and rushes forward, slamming his shoulder into the wood.

He almost blacks out again at the burst of pain, gasping and reeling. He purses his lips against a scream, digs his heels in, and kicks instead. He remembers doors that used to burst inwards. Locks that used to snap at the force of him. Not this one, though. It barely even moves. Does nothing except produce a reverberating, thudding noise.

Arthur snarls, rams into it again and ignores the way every nerve sets alight. Pounds a furious fist at the wood and screams. “Hey!” He kicks again, punches, feels his headache flare as it jostles his neck; as the yell tears from a throat, harsh and scratchy from the trauma of disuse. “Hey! Ya’ll fixin’ to let me out anytime soon?!” He hears a door slam in the distance, but nobody comes over. “Hey! I said hey ya fuckin’ ingrates! I ain’t nobody's prisoner!”

He takes a breath to yell some more, briefly off-balance, almost dizzy again. Then he hears someone coming over. Rustling and clanging. The steps don’t sound too happy, but Arthur doubts footsteps ever can. They’re loud and big, and Arthur knows who they belong to before they even reach his door, coming to a stop a little further away than usual.

“You’re awake,” Charles says, and it’s short, tight as if he’s trying to sound calm, but Arthur can hear the irritation he wants to keep hidden. Arthur’s heart crows at the sound of it. Fuck this bastard.

“Aaah, the knight in shitsoaked armor.” It’s far from what he’d planned to say, but who the hell cares. “Did your keepers send you over? They probably couldn’t stand the smell o’ you. Not that your company’s much better. Poor Charles Smith, too dumb to speak. I’d do my utmost to avoid you too.”

There’s a silence, almost shocked, and Arthur expects some of that irritation to come through when Charles next speaks, but his voice is just as restrained as it was before. “You remembered my name,” he says, and that’s it. 

Arthur’s glad Charles isn’t there to see how quickly his scowl forms. “I’ve got a good memory,” he snaps before he can think about it, then, viciously, “You prob’ly know nothin’ ‘bout that though, seein’ as you can’t even manage more’n five words. Have a hard time telling stories, mute? Or are all the ones you have too worthless to tell?”

Another silence passes with not a single sound. No shuffles or even any sighs. Arthur almost begins to wonder if Charles left. Until, in complete and utter disbelief, Charles asks, “is this you trying to get yourself freed?”.

Oh yeah. 

That’s why Arthur had called someone over.

“Um.” It comes out without his knowledge, breathy and hesitant. The wind taken out of his sails in one swooping, unexpected turnaround. It feels, suddenly and disorientingly, like they’re back to a few days ago. That awful, bitter exchange that had ended with the lock clicking. 

He waits for Charles to leave like he had last time - with a parting insult and a cruel twist of fate - but instead he hears feet come even closer. A sigh. “Are you hungry?” It’s said kindly, softly. Caring. Despite everything.

Arthur’s mind fizzes. “Um,” he says again, unsure. He _is_ hungry. Very. But admitting it feels like an admission of weakness. Giving ground. He’s always been told to never negotiate with the enemy. Never let them have the higher ground. 

This feels like higher ground.

What if he says he’s hungry and Charles holds it against him? Will he ask questions like last time? What if Arthur doesn’t answer them? Will he be starved?

Charles doesn’t sound like he wants to starve Athur.

_It could be a trick._

His stomach rumbles in the long pause of his uncertainty. He wraps his arms around it and stares at the door. This shouldn’t be such a difficult decision. If Dutch found out Arthur was conspiring with their opposition, he would be furious. And besides Hosea and Dutch, nobody has ever offered Arthur food free of charge. This whole situation reeks.

These people aren’t trying to be kind to him. He’s a prisoner here. If they wanted to be kind, they’d let him go.

He scowls at the door. “How ‘bout you fuck off, you sorry sack o’ shit.” He snaps finally. Then hears another sigh, this time louder, and Charles is walking away.

It’s supposed to be a resistance. Standing his ground. Saying he won’t take their shit lying down. That he’s not going to give in to them. 

It doesn’t feel like much of one, though. His mouth is dry with regret and his stomach rumbles. He hates being hungry. Absolutely despises the feeling; the hollow burn and the tongue souring need of it - chapped lips and dry skin and thin limbs. He hasn’t let himself grow hungry since Dutch and Hosea took him in. Since he entered the wonderland of free, bountiful food. Easy access to whatever his stomach could handle, whatever he could put in his mouth and his hands and his plate. Whatever he could put in cupboards, too. Into bags and rooms. Dutch and Hosea brought stability. No more greasy fingers and crackers shoved into pockets; apples stuffed beneath his shirt. No more losing a layer to the pull of a pursuer and having nothing to eat for days. He hasn’t gone hungry in years.

Maybe this is a good thing. He’s been eating a lot. He knows he’s bigger than he used to be. Dutch mentions it sometimes, only in passing. Fighters are fit. They’re always fighting ready. Arthur’s not. Maybe now he can lose some of that weight. This is a good thing. It is.

It’s a good thing.

He should have told Charles the truth. 

_Never let them see they’ve gotten to you._

But he knows he did the smart thing. He didn’t give in to the enemy. Dutch would be proud.

_Don’t ever let your weakness show._

Enforcers have to be stronger than this. _Arthur_ has to be stronger than this. If he isn’t strong then what is he good for?

_Nothing. You’re nothing._

A knock sounds loudly from the door, startling Arthur from his thoughts. He whips to attention, lips peeling back and teeth barred.

“Are you still awake?” It’s Charles.

So he’s come back to taunt Arthur. Is that it? Arthur huffs defensively and glares with as much venom as he can. The effect is somewhat lost considering the door between them, but maybe he can burn a hole through it and straight into Charles’s soul. “‘Course I am!” He spits at the other man, “I ain’t a narcoleptic.”

“I’m surprised you know what that means.”

“Christ, an entire seven words outta you! Must be my unlucky day.”

“Hm,” is all Charles offers in response, and the conversation dies on the end of his tongue. Arthur certainly isn’t going to say a thing else. It isn’t long before Charles speaks again, though, almost impatient - usually his silences aren’t so short. “I made you some food.”

 _Relief_. It swells in him quickly, high and heady, weightless. He can’t even find the energy to push it away. 

But he doesn’t have to. Not a second later there’s fear coursing through him, heavy as a lead balloon and filled with dread. It tears him down at the thought of questions and hunger and interrogation and _tell me your name._ He feels the need to lash out, biting and sharp while he still can, but before he’s able to do so much as open his mouth Charles’s voice pushes past the haze once more.

“Can I bring it in to you?” he asks, and Arthur’s heart rockets with the sound; the meaning of the words. The shock of relief again, so soon after having it stolen away, is enough to make him flustered - lightheaded. His body feels weak with the drain of it all.

He shuffles backwards to the bed and lets his knees hit the edge. Falls to sit on the soft mattress and bounces a bit as he does. “Yeah,” he says, loud so Charles can hear him through the door. Then, “please,” because his dads raised him right and he’s not a completely lost cause. Not yet.

The click of the latch is small, barely there, but Arthur’s mind zeroes in on it. The door is unlocked. He could leave right now. He could force his way past. Take what he’s owed. Hurt them. Nobody’s prepared. The Johnsons aren’t expecting it. Charles is holding food, focused on a task - vulnerable.

When the door opens and Charles steps inside Arthur tenses, tracking the other man’s movements with his eyes. He doesn’t move.

Charles doesn’t move much either. He closes the door behind him, takes slow, sideways steps that circle around the room’s edge. He stops in front of Arthur, watching.

He’s got a plate of food in his right hand. It’s chicken and more potatoes. Green beans seasoned and salted. Rice, too, brown in color with eggs and vegetables Arthur’s never heard of. Then some bread beneath a vibrant orange spread. A pile of fruits. Cheese and tomatoes. Nuts and berries and delicate cubes of something pale. There’s even some folded noodles as well, because why not, and it’s too much. Way too much. More than Arthur’s used to, and he’s used to a lot. And it’s fresh - cooked. When was the last time he’d had cooked food; had healthy food?

He wonders how it all even stays on the plate. There’s _piles_ of it. His mouth waters.

Charles still hasn’t moved, but Arthur bats away the doubt crowding the edges of his thoughts. Instead he looks up to gauge the other man’s expression and finds himself meeting swollen eyes, caught completely by surprise. 

Bruises litter Charles’s face, dark and light in different measures, all around the edges and splitting horizontally in sickly greens from his nose. The swell of his right cheekbone is two times the size of his left. His forehead is split and his nose is, too, and for the first time Arthur notices the man’s cut knuckles and exposed arms, littered in welts and bandages. 

If Arthur is even half as wrecked as Charles, he’s glad he can’t see himself in the mirror.

“Well, ain’t we a pair o’ battered husbands,” he says, and it comes out much more amused than he’d have liked to let on. He instantly regrets it, knowing Charles has the food, then tries to viciously beat the regret down with a mental baseball bat. 

The last thing he needs right now is another...whatever the hell happened last night. He only recalls snippets, but it’s more than enough. He’d acted like a beast at the time - vicious, fit to be tied. All because he’d seen some food. 

Arthur isn’t a feral animal, least not all the time and not all the way. Last night had been an accident, utterly shameful. A disgrace. If Dutch had seen it…well, Arthur doesn’t know what he would’ve done, but it probably wouldn’t have been pretty. He’d have been ashamed, at _least_ , of having a son like Arthur, and Arthur wouldn’t even blame him.

Arthur’s surprised Charles can even look at him without laughing or sneering. Or hell, without even a single mocking word. It’s strange; kind of makes him feel unsteady, though he’d never admit it. He feels like there’s a blow pulled back, just waiting to fall, but it never seems to come.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“’Scuse me?!” Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever met anybody else so capable of giving him this much emotional whiplash. Except maybe Mary.

Charles lets out a small puff of breath, not quite a sigh this time, and holds out the plate to Arthur. He stands tall and steady despite his injuries, arm never wavering. Arthur would probably have admired the other man’s steadfastness if he didn’t have eyes only for the plate.

He resists the urge to throw himself at it. To tuck himself around it in bodily protection. Inhale it quick and fast before it’s stolen. Instead he takes it slowly, gently, careful to avoid brushing fingers. Now would be a good time to attack Charles, extended and defenseless, weak with remorse. Arthur can take him out in seconds. Then nothing could stop him completing his job, bursting out the unlocked door, going home.

“The other day, when we spoke and I locked the door. I was supposed to bring you food.” 

Arthur scoffs, pausing only a second to grab the fork resting atop his plate before digging in. He doesn’t know where to start so he starts everywhere, scooping up a large mouthful of rice and eggs and the small folded noodles that, he realizes in pleasant surprise, have other food inside them. He chews just enough to taste it all before swallowing the whole thing down. “So ya decided to throw yo’ weight ‘round. Ain’t like it’s never happened before. No need to pitch a fit about it.” He shoves more food in his mouth, using one hand to bite clean through half of the toast and jam - whose flavor he still can’t identify - and using the fork in his other to shovel in as much fruit as possible. Then he moves on to the meats, eager to taste the sweet juices, almost keening with pleasure as the small white squares of whatever practically melt in his mouth and crumble between his teeth, a savory slide down the curl of his tongue. It’s amazing. All of it is. This food is the best he’s ever tasted and he would die happily right now if it meant this was the last thing he felt.

Someone clears their throat above him. He looks up, swallowing roughly around the mass of paste in his mouth, and sees Charles still standing in the exact same spot. He’s tense as a livewire, though it’s well hidden. Arthur doubts anybody but people like him could ever notice such a thing. 

The other man’s tension is brittle, not bending - not fighting ready or set to strike. Arthur silently weighs his own injuries and current position with Charles’s. Would it be enough to beat the man? Charles’s reflexes would be slow in the initial attack, but he would recover quickly. He’s already shown that his injuries barely affect his movement. Arthur, on the other hand, would have the advantage for a moment before Charles overpowered him. 

He wonders if he’d even be able to make it two steps outside of this room, Charles or no. Just chewing is enough to make his head pound. His bruises have barely faded and his body is weak from days of rest. Two of his ribs are broken, another two are at least bruised, and he’s convinced his ankle is either twisted or fractured. That’s one of his injuries that hasn’t been wrapped or cared for in any way, and Arthur wonders if Charles and the Johnsons even know it exists. Not that he’d tell them, of course. It’s just another weakness to add to the growing list. Another advantage under their belts, power stolen from his own body to use against him. Just because they aren’t starving him doesn’t mean they can’t do other things, should the want arise. Arthur’s not half convinced they won’t just starve him later, either, after he’s let his guard down.

He curls around the plate with that in mind, hunching over the top and wrapping an arm around the edge of ceramic. Because he has let his guard down. Badly. In front of the man who beat him no less.

God what would Dutch say? Or Christ, even Bill? Arthur’s not so sure Javier wouldn’t have some choice words for him neither. Here Arthur is, chatting with the enemy, all friendly like, as if without worries. He should be slitting the man’s throat and robbing him blind, not talking about apologies while he eats out in the open, injuries on display and the cracks in his armor exposed. Arthur’s a goddamn fool. A blind, stupid fool. How many times is he going to fall for the same sick charade before he finally learns his damn lesson?

“I didn’t starve you.” Arthur stiffens at the sound, glaring up at the other man through the matted strings of his hair. He pulls his food closer and resists the urge to bare his teeth like an animal. Charles’s reaction is less easy to read this time around. He looks stoic, eyes fixed intently on Arthur, only the barest hint of guilt in the rise of his shoulders. He still doesn’t move from where he’s standing, though. “Not intentionally. I went to get food for you and there was…an emergency. I only realized later that I’d forgotten.” He sighs, lips tightening. “But that’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”

Arthur licks his fork clean. Scrapes it loudly over the empty remains of his plate and then licks it again. He isn’t entirely sure what to say, and it’s at times like these that he always makes the worst of his blunders. So he sticks to what he knows. “Okay.”

“Okay.” 

And then a hand is coming at him, quick and unexpected, violent. Arthur rears back, mind ringing. His gaze sharpens, heart rabbiting, indignation and anger and fear, and lashes out before the pain comes, jabbing forward with every ounce of might left in him.

“Fuck!” The scream tears from Charles, high and bellowing, and Arthur’s momentarily struck dumb at the sound of it, so used to the quiet lack of cursing and the careful words.

Then Charles is wrenching himself away, hand wrapped around an inner forearm tight with the clench of his fist. Silver and gleaming, a bloody beacon under the sun’s soft rays, the fork sits buried in the thick meat of it. Charles curses again, loudly, angrily. He grabs the fork by the handle and tears it out through a gush of blood. Words pour from his mouth, foreign to Arthur’s ears as he slides his palm down tense, bulging muscle to cover the wound, hissing with pain.

 _This is it._

And Arthur attacks, quick and ruthless, refusing to give his opponent the chance to breathe - to gain the upper hand. He launches forward and grips Charles’s lowered head by the hair, has one second to marvel at the softness of it before he’s bringing it back against the wall, a resounding crack that has the man stumbling, almost collapsing. Charles reels away, over to the opposite side of the room, and releases his arms, letting them both drop to his sides, blood slick from the elbows down and fingers curled forward. He hunches, heaves, hair loose from it’s tail to frame his face. When he looks up again his expression is one of tight, barely controlled anger.

Arthur doesn’t hesitate. Rushing in again, he flings himself at Charles's lower ribs, knowing one of them’s broken. Sends them both into the wall for the second time, cramped in the tiny space of the bedroom. Strikes and strikes again, knuckles reopening against bruised flesh and tight muscle. Charles cries out with it, a sound of pain and hurt and fury.

Before he can do much else, Arthur feels a tight, searing grip in his own hair, tearing his head away, and then there’s a rush towards his face - a knee - a _snap_ , and blinding agony. He yells, tries to pull away but the fingers scrape brutally at his scalp, pulling up until another hand slams against his throat, flings his head into something hard and unrelenting. His vision spots, headache blistering to life, and he can’t even scream through the band around his throat, ever tightening. 

Panic makes him claw at the arm, the fingers, the wrist. He kicks, heels scrabbling against the wall, and finally he flings his arm out, nails catching against broken skin, digging into a cheek, a nose, eyes. The weight disappears suddenly - too suddenly - and Arthur falls, crumples to his side, chest heaving as he struggles to regain his breath. His exhales devolve into wracking coughs, and his every inhale makes his nose sting and his brain throb.

There’s a dash of steps above him, shouts and worried tones that quickly get louder with the thud of stairs. Arthur hears Charles move, let out a rush of tired breath. Thud to the ground next to him. 

Then the door bursts open and the frenzy of footsteps ceases.

“Charles!” Mr. Johnson exclaims, voice dripping with worry. 

Arthur hears one set of feet continue into the room and knows they’re Mr. Johnson rushing to Charles’s side. He wishes in a burning moment of vulnerability that he had somebody to come to his side. But he’s alone here, pressed beneath the weight of these three strangers. Who hate him and care for him in confusing, dreadful moments of kindness he can’t ever seem to make sense of.

“Oh,” a high voice says, scratchy in a way that makes him think of lips wrapped around the butt of a cigarette; smoke curling from an amber spot of light. “Charles what did you do to him?” Arthur has a brief moment of bewilderment over who she could possibly be talking about, and then there are socked feet in front of him, knees folding before his eyes. He tilts his head and sees Mrs. Johnson, round face and short, perfectly coiffed black and peppered gray hair. Her eyes are dark, brown and warm. He can almost see worry in them when she looks at him. 

It’s a nice delusion, but it’s just that. Nonsense. Made up. Nothing but fanciful hopes. These people don't care for him.

Arthur wants Hosea.

He hates that he does. Hates the need that rises in him sometimes, completely out of his control no matter how hard he tries to push it away - beat it down, smother it - for Hosea’s warm embrace and uplifting words. For his rough, age worn fingers and the careful turn of pages yellowed with candlelight. For moments so long ago, lost to time, where he’d lay a hand on Arthur’s head as he drifted to sleep and tell stories in low, soft tones of jobs that didn’t end in violence or pain; of jobs fun and strange, hopeful in a way.

Arthur doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t understand why he can’t just cut the feeling out of him. Why it didn’t disappear as he’d gotten older. Like Dutch had said it would when the words _Pa_ and _Da_ started to become more embarrassing than comforting. He doesn’t understand why he wishes Hosea were here, a force of fondness at his side - loving. It’s childish. Ridiculous. He’s a grown man now; a _protector_. It shouldn’t be Hosea helping him, it should be him helping Hosea.

But god, he wants Hosea here with him.

And instead he has this woman. Mrs Johnson. Who keeps him here with locked doors and Charles’s massive silhouette.

He just wants to go home. 

“Oh dear. Sweetheart.” He blinks out of his thoughts and focuses back on Mrs. Johnson. “Can you hear me? How does your head feel?”

“Fine,” he growls, studiously ignoring the pain that spikes as he speaks. He grinds his teeth frustratedly. Blood drips from his nose to the floor in steady plops.

“Oh my,” she breathes, looking over his face with concern. She moves to touch him, the slightest lift of fingers, and he flinches away before he can help himself. She aborts the movement swiftly - trying and failing to act natural - brows drawing together with something else. Pity, Arthur thinks, and the curdle of hatred in his gut is all for himself, not a lick for her, but it’s easy to pretend that it is. 

“What happened?” Mr. Johnson is the one that ends up asking it. Voice neutral; no judgement. Yet Arthur knows that will soon change.

It’s a bit of a surprise when Charles treats the Johnsons with the same sort of silence he does Arthur. Perhaps it isn’t a reticence thing like Arthur had first thought. Maybe Charles actually thinks before he speaks. 

After a small time, Charles shakes his head and looks over at Arthur, gaze indecipherable. Watches him with something Arthur can’t quite name, and Arthur feels flayed alive beneath those eyes, stripped of his shields and left exposed, the oozing black filth of his worthlessness and evil peeled bare for all to see. He riles against it, eyes narrow and mouth a vicious slash across his face. He digs his nails into the floorboards and sneers - a cruel, ugly thing.

“I fought y’alls _precious_ little protector here,” and the vitriol is acrid on his tongue but he doesn’t mind it - is used to it - thinks he likes it, “Tell me, did you train him to be this much of a beast or was he dragged from the jungle like a rabid animal?” 

Mrs. Johnson inhales sharply, eyes wide and appalled. Pulls away in disgust and turns to face Charles instead. Knees still planted in front of Arthur. Her back is to him and the door now, though, open and unprotected. Unaware. He could race right past her, out the door and into the house. Lock them inside the room. Take everything. 

He coils, breath caught in his throat. The zing of anticipation races through him and he tenses his legs, pushes -

“Don’t.”

Freezes. Heart stopping. He can’t look away from the door, can’t breathe. Feels a hand wrap around the collar of his shirt and yank him upward.

“Charles!” Mrs. Johnson gasps, launching to her feet alongside Arthur’s rough ascent. “Stop. His head-”

And it truly does feel afire. Red behind his eyes and a bullet through his skull. His neck chafes and stings along the rough edge of his collar and he twists, batting out, toes scraping at the floor. The grip loosens only mildly, lets him think he’s free, only for another hand to come around, big and strong, to grapple at his wrists, find one. With a snap his collar is pulled again, head whipped back, shoulder lifted and hips pushed out at the brace of his wrist against his lower back. He kicks again, sliding now, unable to gain a foothold, and the white-hot pain in his shoulder has him gasping through a broken howl.

“I won’t hurt him,” Charles says, the lying piece of shit, and Arthur is forced roughly forward as Charles moves, back suddenly pressed to the other man’s chest. It feels horribly reminiscent of their first fight. When Arthur had lost so brutally.

The memory rises hot and bubbling beneath his skin, makes him snarl in indolent rage. He lashes his head, pushes back and lifts his legs, tries to butt his skull against the body behind him. None of it works. Charles is a solid, relentless wall. Slowly moving forward, dragging Arthur with him towards the bed.

“The fuck offa me you goddamn coward!” He screams and bucks. Nothing. “Fuckin’ ignaramous, a dog’d be smarter’n you! Did you not hear what I just said?! Get the hell offa me!” His feet finally find something, rest on it. The edge of the bed. He lets out a yell and braces, pushing into Charles with all the strength he’s got left.

Charles stumbles back, grunts as Arthur’s head finally connects with bone. He slips, loses his grip, and wrestles against Arthur’s flailing. “You’re a sick fuckin’ sadist. You enjoyin’ this, sheepfucker?! Ya witless pervert?”

“Christ!”

“Get out of here. Please, I’ve got this,” says the voice Arthur’s back, vibrations against his skin, and Arthur is numb to receding footsteps; the slam of a door. All he does is twist and writhe, try to reverse the other man’s hold of him. But Charles stays firm, managing to grab Arthur’s hips, pulling them against his own violently. Then Charles is leaning forward, pinning Arthur’s arm to his own back with the weight of his body and finally acquiring a bruising grip on the forearm of his other, holding it to Arthur’s chest. 

Arthur feels the flesh of Charles’s cheek against his jaw, bruised and swollen - the both of them. A chin settles, once, twice on Arthur's shoulder as he tremors, struggles to pull free again. Then, lips against his ear, hot breaths in puffs. “Do you _ever_ shut up?” 

Arthur hisses, spits blood and skin to the side, flings his head in protest. “Go slip on black ice you limp flopping trout.” 

Charles sighs, loud and explosive, and there’s a flash of boots against ribs, harsh, panting breaths following a disappointed sigh and _nodaddypleaseI’msorry._ Arthur exhales with fear, pulse pounding at his ribs like a hammer. Feels small, quiet shakes in the frame behind and knows - _knows_ \- that it’s anger and fury and punishment. Knuckles against helpless skin, in the soft of his tummy and the plump of his cheeks. He holds back a whimper, tries to clear his sight, to come back to reality, but the weight is too much.

Then, a faint huff against his face. Shaky, thready laughter skimming the edges of it, barely held back.

The world returns to him in a surge. As the hold on his limbs loosens, the force against his back quakes and amusement colors the air.

“Where do you come up with these things?” Charles asks, voice wavering. There’s an almost unnoticeable high note to it, and Arthur stands still in surprise, ensconced in the gentle cradle of this man’s arms. Hearing him laugh.

At having been insulted.

“Um.” He doesn’t know what to say. What to do. The anger is gone now, a fading shadow, dim against the back of his mind. He feels like he’s falling, emotions haywire, utterly confused. The rug has been pulled out from under him after all, but it’s not at all what he’d expected.

Charles breathes out against his jaw, calm now, laughter gone. If it ever was there in the first place. Arthur has his doubts. Charles is not an easy man to read. Arthur hadn’t even known he could be amused until just now. Though he reckons that’s because they haven’t met much outside of certain settings. If it weren’t for how close they’d been, though, Arthur thinks he might not have known Charles was laughing at all.

“You don’t strike me as the type with a funny bone,” Arthur says, voice shot. It’s strange to speak things after screaming them, especially with how badly roughed up the back of his throat is. Perhaps Arthur should stop aggravating all of his injuries if he wants them to actually heal anytime soon.

“Hm.” Charles finally moves away, releasing Arthur in gentle, deliberate movements. His fingers, sticky against the sweat of Arthur’s skin, peel away to reveal harsh white circles of pressure, changing rapidly to red. He knows they’re going to bruise, but Arthur doubts they’ll even register amidst the bed of purples and yellows blooming like flowers over every inch of his body. “I’m not without humor.”

“But you are without a face for showing it.”

“Heh. Sometimes.”

Arthur shakes his head at that and steps away, turning instantly to keep a watch of Charles. He’s not going to risk his back with this man, no matter how chummy they’ve suddenly gotten. 

Still, he teeters on the edge of an apology, unsure why he feels the need to say one. It sticks to the top of his mouth, lingers on the tip of his tongue. Charles is moving, that same circling, prowling walk as he paces towards the door. Arthur watches him; watches the door - remembers why he’s here. The circumstances of this whole situation. He doesn’t owe these people anything.

They don’t owe him much either. 

He wonders, then, why they keep on giving.

Charles picks up the plate on the way out. It had apparently rolled from the bed to the door during the confrontation. Most likely flung into the corner when the door burst open. 

Then he opens the door. Allows a stretch of yellow lamplight through, a slim streak atop the light brown wood panels. Freedom so tantalizingly close. 

Arthur swallows, eyeing that patch of light; the inviting crack of the exit. Feels Charles’s eyes on him. No threats

“We’re not keeping you here.”

“O’ course, that’s why y’all locked the door.”

“You’re injured badly,” Charles says, looking for all the world like an exasperated doctor with a stubborn patient, “but leave if you wish to.” _If you can._

Arthur scowls, ducks his head and grits his teeth, forces the anger down. Every cut is a raw, bleeding line across his skin. Every bruise aches, new and old. Wounds reopened, head splitting, sickened and exhausted, he knows he couldn’t even make it to the front door. He shakes his head, a rising throb to meet each cut of it through the air, and fights back the nausea cramping in his gut.

He could call his family - his gang. Except he doesn’t have a phone right now. He has nothing right now. Any phone he’d have to get would be borrowed from these people, and then they’d know. They’d have confirmation that he’s a part of a group. Know it was that group that lent to them. They’d have the chance to do any number of things about it, all with Arthur’s family completely unaware of the danger.

And Arthur can’t go to a hospital, not with the wanted posters of him out there. Not with the police only just shaken off their tail.

Hell, that’s where they’d gotten Mac. Arthur still shivers sometimes just thinking about it. No hospital is a safe place for them. No cab neither. They don’t even carry cell phones - not real ones. The risk of tracking is too high. Or worse, the risk of the phones getting lost and found by any number of people who could use the information. Least, that’s what Dutch says. Arthur reckons Dutch knows what’s best when it comes to technology, considering Arthur himself can barely manage a computer.

“Why are you helpin’ me?” It slips out, the barest whisper, but he doesn’t regret it. Because there has to be some reason. Something they want from him. There has to be.

There’s a long silence in response, but Arthur’s getting used to them by now. He fidgets through it; occupies himself with his fingers and his sleeves, scratches and rubs the back of his neck and feels the tickle of hair at the nape. 

He’d used to cut it shorter, shaved at the sides and slicked back in a short fade. Never grown past his ears. Recently he’s let it grow longer. Entirely because he’s decided to shake things up a bit - hide his face from the law - and not at all because he’d forgotten to cut it one day and Jack had been ecstatic, weaving flowers through the length. Braids in neat little plates and rings of color to thread a crown.

“I’m not,” Charles finally says, and the sound almost makes Arthur jump, “Ji and Sheila are. I’m here to ensure their efforts don’t get them killed.” He pauses, then, tone pondering, “they say you saved my life.”

Arthur laughs, hard and brittle. “Well now, that don’t sound like me.”

Charles lets off a huff, light and barely there. “I know, it shocked me too.” Arthur would say it was almost amused, if he was at all able to read the man.

“That a joke? With yo’ enemy no less. You should be ashamed o’ yo’self.” Arthur retreats a step. Isn’t able to get out the words that he’s staying. Only for now, of course, only for a little while. But it still feels too much like a betrayal; less like the smart decision he thinks it is. He wonders if he’s got this situation all wrong. If he’s let these people manipulate him like some half brained fool without him realizing. It hardly matters, though. He’s trapped by circumstance.

“I’ll live.” Charles doesn’t mention Arthur’s tentative refusal to speak. Doesn’t intrude on his space. “I’m going to have to lock the door.” The air rushes from the room, and Arthur snaps to attention, clenches his fists and glares with malice, but before he can do a thing Charles keeps going. “I don’t trust you enough to leave you alone,” he says, stoic again - hard as stone, “if you want to leave, call for me and I’ll come with you.”

Arthur scowls, affronted. “What, so yo’ my keeper? I don’t need no babysitter to watch me.”

“I’m your guard. Now, do you need anything before I go?”

Indignation buzzes beneath his skin, something close to shame just below it. Arthur opens his mouth to tell Charles to fuck off. Then stops himself. Ignores the lump of something in his throat, thick and welling, that makes it hard to breath. “Do you have…” He clears his throat. Rubs at the back of his neck again, tugs at the small hairs there. This is a bad idea, but - “paper?”

“Paper.” For someone so stoic he sure does put a lot of emotion into words.

Arthur riles. Stops himself again. Presses his palms to his thighs and forces himself to exhale past the lump, heart hurting in a way that makes his knees weak. He doesn’t understand why this is so hard. 

Charles waits patiently for him to speak, though. So maybe he’s not a hypocrite either. Maybe he’s just comfortable with silence. Or he’s patient.

Arthur’s never been one for patience.

“Or a notebook,” he manages in a rush, after what feels like hours of trying to force the words from his mouth, “and a pencil.” _To write_. But the words get stuck again.

Charles watches him for a moment, then nods. “I’ll see what I can find,” he says, and it’s almost kind. 

Arthur hates it.

He scoffs, backs further away, watches Charles as the man turns around. Leaves. The door closes behind him, lock clicking. And Arthur sits. Waits. Tries not to think about the feeling of guilt. The worry of betrayal. That he’s made the worst mistake of his life.

That he’ll never be forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: extreme violence, broken bones, head injury, blood and gore, derogatory language/insults, violent threats, emetophobia, physical violence, ptsd flashbacks, panic attacks, injury recovery, references to emotional manipulation/unhealthy relationship, negative self talk, self hatred, negative self esteem, referring to trauma reactions/temporary disability as weak/pathetic/pitiful, implied starvation, fatshaming, unintentional misgendering, implied/referenced torture.
> 
> A/N  
> It is entirely plausible that a modern day Arthur wouldn't have even heard of dumplings. Aside from the fact that his early life was first subjected to Lyle and then living on the streets, his time with the gang probably didn't exactly expose him to much else either. I think, in a better world where this isn't a low-honor Arthur and the gang is reminiscent of the late game fallout, they would all share their cultures with each other. Big family nights where they're more than a gang - where Javier cooks mexican food and plays music, where Arthur makes homecakes with Hosea while Dutch makes scrapple. Where Karen would sing loudly and Mary-Beth would read her books aloud to the attentive gathering. But this isn't that world. And in-game Arthur, no matter his honor, chugs fucking canned pineapples like they're shots of espresso and stops to eat soup for literally three seconds before continuing on with his day. He eats like it's fuel. It is incredibly hard to get Arthur healthy and even harder to get him fat. However, both an underweight and overweight Arthur are pretty in character. Underweight because he works too much, doesn't have time to eat, isn't used to doing it and so he doesn't. Overweight because he remembers what it felt like to be hungry, is desperate to never feel that again, and so eats whatever and whenever he can. That's what I decided to go with, although this Arthur is more a healthy one just a touch on the overweight scale, mainly because he works so damn much and never relaxes.  
> Anyways I hope you guys liked this chapter! I'm hoping to get back to the formatting of Ch.1 soon, but we'll see how it goes. Thanks again for reading this far and I'm glad so many people love it. Comments are much appreciated!
> 
> Songs Listened To:  
> -No Bravery by James Blunt  
> -Afraid by The Neighborhood


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur mellows a healthy amount. Then mellows a bit too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see endnotes for trigger warnings and story spoilers.

The next day, Arthur wakes to rain. His window is closed, the drops pattering harmlessly against dirty glass, light and small to accompany the delicate wisps of gray clouds in the sky. Yet with every low splat, the pounding in his head skyrockets.

Arthur groans, cursing, and digs his head into the pillows. Damn his past self and damn Charles fucking Smith. His recent fight with the man had resulted in a hell of a beating, and if they had never fought he’s certain he would be at least halfway healed by now.

He knows he has nobody to blame but himself. He knows it. But he definitely isn’t going to think too long about it.

Fucking Charles Smith. 

Now Arthur’s head is on fire again and his body feels like it’s been keelhauled through the seven rings of hell. And, to make matters so much worse, he’s stuck in this godforsaken bed. Again. 

But damn the headache and damn the pain, Arthur absolutely refuses to spend a second longer laying on this miserable thing than he has to. 

He scowls and kicks his blankets away, leveraging his arms under his back as he does so. Then goes taut and braces himself, breaths already coming out in short puffs. He tries to clear his mind. To think of other things as he slowly, excruciatingly, heaves himself upright and into a sitting position. It’s exhausting and harrowing. Wrings the energy from him like a wet rag, and by the time it’s over he’s panting and breathless. Blinking spots away from his vision as he trembles with the effort of holding himself in place. 

But at least he’s up now. At least he’s capable of doing something. Not completely useless. Not completely helpless. Not ruined. Not yet.

Then, like the fool he is, he decides to push his luck. 

Arthur goes to swing his legs over the side of the bed, a harsh, sudden movement -

And almost whites out from the pain.

A gasp escapes him before he can stop it, ankle pulsing angrily in protest. He curses again, loudly, and struggles to choke back the yell that tries to follow. Then, furious, fuming down at the stupid busted thing that’s been causing him so much trouble, Arthur huffs and grits his teeth against the pain. He doesn’t stop to think; doesn’t stop to regret what he’s about to do. He lifts, turns, and flings his legs violently from the bed until his feet thump to the floor.

“Shit!” It rips from his throat like acid - catches on the backs of his teeth. Trembling, Arthur sucks in a large breath and fists at the sheets beneath him. His head is heavy, limp and weighted like the rest of his limbs, and he bows beneath the pressure. Tries to organize his sluggish thoughts and calm his racing heart.

It takes a long time. Leaves him sitting there, folded in on himself like a puppet with its strings cut, for what feels like hours. But finally, slowly, he manages to get a reign of his emotions and control of his thoughts. Manages to find peace; to find strength in his muscles and steadiness in his limbs. Manages to reboot his brain enough to start thinking again.

Only now, upright and half awake and becoming more aware by the second, Arthur is finally able to notice everything he hadn’t been able to before. Embarrassing things - little things - that hadn’t been important when he was half dying, bedridden and restrained, but that now stand out to him as shining beacons of his failure. Things about his body. How worn he is; how disgusting. How despicable he must look.

And he tries to ignore it. He does. Tries to ignore the greasy, unkempt strands of his hair and the grime of dirt and dried blood caked into his skin. The tight, itchy stick of his jeans to his legs and the feeling of weightlessness where he knows his hat should be. Tries not to think about how pathetic he must look right now, unable to move or even to sit up. To do anything but have the people he’s hurt wait on him hand and foot. 

As if he’s the one what needs helping.

The tentative knock that breaks through his musings is sudden and unexpected, appearing as if summoned by his thoughts. It has Arthur glancing over warily, not so sure he wants to speak to anybody right now. Not so sure he wants anybody to see him.

“Are you awake, dear?” A voice calls through - Mrs. Johnson.

Arthur grimaces at the sound. He’d been hoping it was somebody else and not…well. One of the debtors. 

He still doesn’t quite know how to act around these people - this couple. With Charles it’s easier, somehow. More natural. And usually more violent, though Arthur reckons that’s mostly on him. 

With Mrs. Johnson though...Arthur isn’t sure. She’s not resistant and not a bad person. She’s not a threat, either. She’s barely an enemy. He can’t be violent or cruel to her - doesn’t particularly want to be. Maybe. 

He’s done it before, though, is the thing. To her and her husband. So perhaps he does want to. Perhaps it’s another thing that’s natural to him and he’s just never realized. Maybe it comes to him because it’s all he is, in spite of what he wants or doesn’t want.

It’s all so confusing.

He clears his throat uncomfortably and glances away from her. Then peaks back, eyeing the door handle. She doesn’t go to open it yet, and he wonders if Charles told her not to. Is she waiting for permission from him? Does his permission matter?

Arthur hesitates, wallowing in silence as she lingers on the other side of the door. Then, softer than he’d wanted to, pitifully unsure even to his own ears, “yes, ma’am.”

Instantly, her tone changes. From low and timid to bright and happy, rich with joy. “Oh, that’s very good!” she exclaims, “You’re coherent too. How wonderful!” And it’s enough to put him off balance. To make him blink dumbly. Hardly able to speak from the shock of it.

“Um...sho’.” 

Mrs. Johnson is entirely unfazed. “Do you mind if I come in? Your bandages need changing and you most certainly need to be checked over again. Especially after a night like this last one. My, what a disaster I tell you. I haven’t seen a fight like that since my younger days! Wild boys, those Pulers. A killin’ for every man who crossed ‘em.” 

“Uh-”

“Oh! And to think after you’d just started to recover, too. It must have been a real disappointment. Why, when I got my knee broken by a drug lord back on that boat in the pacific, I was absolutely ecstatic to finally have it healed! I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to relive all that.”

“Wha-”

“I have some good sedatives for you, dear. Some nice clean bandages as well. We’ll get you all settled in, just you wait.”

“No sedatives, I-”

“No sedatives? Why that’s quite alright. I won’t even bring them inside. Here, they’re gone-” and outside the room he can hear a dull thud. The sound of something being thrown. His mind reels. This is all happening way too fast. He wants to tell her to stop but she just keeps on going. “I’m so sorry about what we fed you the other day, by the way. Felt mighty guilty about it afterwards, even if it did end up helping you. I’ve been roofied myself, though, and I know it’s never a feeling you can really shake.”

“Tha-”

“But don’t you worry yourself about such things! Why, you must be tired. Absolutely exhausted, I bet. I’ll be in and out - quick as can be. So don’t you worry about that neither, you hear? Just a nice little check in to make sure your latest hit to the head didn’t do too much damage.”

“You-”

“Oh! And I have some food here for you as well. Fresh off the stove!”

And hell, she _really_ should have just started with that. Arthur perks up at the promise of a warm meal, scooting to the edge of his bed eagerly. He stubbornly ignores the swell of heat in his ankle and his lingering thoughts of guilt as he calls out to her. “Well shoot, come right on in then!” He catches himself, coughs roughly into his elbow and turns his head away again. “Uh...ma’am. Please.” 

As soon as he finishes speaking, the world bursts into chaos. The latch on the door clicks and then Mrs. Johnson is there, quick as lightning, pushing into the room so fast Arthur barely gets a good look at her before she’s right in front of him. A plate of food settles in his lap and bandages bounce beside him on the bed before he can so much as blink. The motion makes the mattress tilt and Arthur instinctively grabs the plate in his lap as it slides away, looking down for just a second, distracted. 

And then there are hands in his hair.

“Hey now!” He yelps and jumps, jostling the food by accident, and the small bowl of soup in the middle spills over the sides a bit as he struggles to keep the whole thing steady. 

In a flash, the hands are pulling away, their missing weight lingering heavy in the air. It leaves Arthur feeling disturbingly bereft, although he’s uncertain as to why.

“Oh dear. I’m so sorry. I should have asked first,” Mrs. Johnson breathes, high and scratchy and sincere to the bones.

Arthur’s beginning to think it isn’t just Charles capable of giving him emotional whiplash. 

He tightens his fingers around the plate. Stares down at it and resolutely tries not to look into that unguarded face - knows it holds compassion and warmth and too much kindness. 

“Uh, ‘s fine ma’am-”

“Oh please, call me Sheila!”

He closes his eyes. Swallows. “Sheila, ma’am…’s fine. Do - what you need ta.” Resists the urge to say sorry.

“Only if you’re sure,” she says, voice gentled, and it’s like a balm to his mind. So considerate. So caring. He tries hard not to think about that small kindness either - tries not to think about the whole host of kindnesses the Johnsons seem so keen on giving away freely.

Mrs. Johnson plops herself down next to the first aid kit and turns to face him, gaze searching. Arthur watches her out of the corner of his eye and doesn’t say a thing. Waits quietly until eventually she sighs and turns to rummage through her things, speaking again as she does so. “Now eat your food. Let me take care of this next part.”

And that’s an order Arthur can absolutely follow, though the feel of her at his exposed side sets his nerves alight. 

He focuses on the meal to distract himself from it. Focuses on the variety of foods in front of him. Abundant and fresh and fascinating. He can’t help marveling as he eats - trying to categorize everything he lays eyes on. 

He practically devours the chicken noodle soup - full to brimming with dozens of different meats and colorful chopped vegetables. Then it’s the crisp buttered toast and the strange white cheeses, demolished in an instant. Small cubed cantaloupes inhaled next and slices of watermelon shredded to the rinds. Nuts and eggs gone only seconds after.

Arthur eats it all with a relish he’s never thought to give food before. Not until now. Not until he’s had so much of it - so diverse and healthy and interesting.

Through it all, Mrs. Johnson is there, fingers prodding and poking. Inciting sharp spikes of pain with every movement. Splitting open old wounds and sending them stinging with wet cloths and new wraps. She burns a smarting trail of injuries down the length of his body, over his ribs and his neck and his face and his head.

Yet, unexpectedly, over the course of it, the hurts are soothed over. A run of words like water to wash it all away - excited and endless and utterly captivating. Stories which Arthur has never heard before and won’t ever admit he likes. Tales of adventure and robbery and the wild west. Facts about hyacinths and flying squirrels and flowers that bloom in the night. Myths surrounding trees that whisper and ghosts that cry - monsters who carry you gently to bed. Histories of fire and anecdotes she says are real, but that are just a bit too unbelievable to be true. 

Mrs. Johnson talks almost as much as Sean does. It’s less grating in a way, though. Almost soothing instead. Words strung together with hope and happiness instead of bluster and pride.

They remind him of Hosea.

Arthur finds he doesn’t mind the pain so much when Mrs. Johnson is doing the healing. He finds he doesn’t mind her company much, either.

And it’s harder than it should be to remind himself, after all is said and done - wounds healed and skin clean, full of food and conversation - that he can’t trust her. That he can’t trust any of them.

That he’s trapped and he’s stranded. Completely at their mercy.

—-

After Mrs. Johnson goes, taking both her tools and her dishes out the door, Arthur is left alone with his thoughts once more. 

He’s left to wonder about a lot of things, caught in this precarious situation. Alone and silent. Left to wonder about Dutch and the gang. How they’re doing and if they’re okay. Then - secretly, quietly, as if the gang will pop angrily from the woodworks if he thinks it too loudly - he wonders if they worry about him. He wonders if they care. 

They’d call him a soft hearted fool for it. Likely mock him too. Dutch and all them are allowed to speak of family, but Arthur has found that when he does it the others give him strange looks. Insulted ones. And he knows - _knows_ that they think him a monster; think him unworthy. Something Other.

He knows they’re right, too.

So he tries to avoid thinking about it when he can. Tries to think of other things besides loneliness and separation. Tries not to think about the jobs he’s always out on, away from happy gatherings and vivacious songs. How they always come together so well in their small little groups - Dutch and Hosea, Grimshaw and the girls, Javier and the boys - with no room for Arthur. Only what he brings. What he can give them. What he can provide. 

If he stops providing, will that be the end of him? Will Dutch finally realize he’s not worth it? 

The small scraps of camaraderie Arthur receives from the group are more than enough for him. More than he’s owed. More than what he deserves. He hordes them like cheap pennies. Sits on his tiny pile of short, shining sparks of home and guards it viciously. Revisits them when things get tough to remind himself of what he fights for; why he does what he does. And Arthur couldn’t bear to lose what little he already has to the space of his absence - the proof of his inadequacy.

They _have_ to know he’s still useful. 

But he wonders if he’s been useful enough. 

\---

It’s around late noon when Arthur realizes Mrs. Johnson never locked the door. His stomach is rumbling again and his wounds feel a bit better, though the ankle still pains him. He stares at the door for a long while as he mulls over his options. He could call Charles or one of the Johnsons. Ask for some food. Expose himself to them. Act weak. Beg for scraps.

Or he could leave. Get some food himself and sneak back to his room before they notice he’s gone. No harm done. Easy.

Except that walking so far seems nearly impossible. The heavy, hot lump on his ankle is a constant reminder of his disability. That he can barely move his foot let alone walk on it. That he’s crippled, insignificant, easy to take advantage of. Easy to hurt.

Even with Charles out of the house Arthur couldn’t rob these people blind.

But he _can_ get himself some food. He _has_ to be able to do that, at least. Has to be able to do something. 

So Arthur pushes himself out of bed again. Goes through the same song and dance of pain and misery. Forces himself to keep going, because he’s stronger than this and he’s better than this. Because piddling around uselessly isn’t an option and he would rather chew off his own arm than spend another damned day in that bed.

He’s never been so excited to open a door. And it’s strange, finally exiting the room after days of being inside it. Stepping out into the hallway he’s heard so many people come down. Standing where Charles probably stood so many times to speak to him through the wood.

Arthur scuffs a foot over that spot, lightly so as not to aggravate anything. Then huffs determinedly and pushes forward. Every jilting limp shoots pain through his leg; makes his toes curl and his fists clench. But he’s not about to give up. He can’t.

He breathes slowly. In and out on repeat. Focuses on the path he wants to take, mentally mapping out the rooms he passes and what’s inside them. He breathes again, concentrates on the rhythm of his exhales and the pull of his muscles. Pushes everything else to the back of his mind.

Which, he realizes only after he crosses into the kitchen, is a truly terrible, horrible idea. Because he doesn’t know who’s in the house right now. Which rooms are which and who belongs where. Arthur hasn’t ever been out of his own room before. So he’s completely unprepared when he stumbles into the kitchen, blinded by the single minded focus of his efforts, and catches sight of another man.

And it’s Mr. Johnson - already in the kitchen. Cooking. Who’s noticed Arthur. And is looking at him, gazing sideways from where he stands in front of the stove, spatula hovering frozen over a pan of sizzling noodles.

Arthur freezes too, heart hammering. 

He doesn’t feel like much of a dangerous outlaw right now. Doesn’t feel like the capable, practiced killer he knows he is. Instead, he feels caught like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Afraid of whatever punishment might be meted out against him. It makes his tongue feel swollen and heavy, arms numb and shoulders aching. Makes him feel afraid and hateful all at once, a sudden rise against the burning helplessness.

But Mr. Johnson doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to attack or call out for Charles. Doesn’t do much of anything except stare, caught in the same moment of surprise Arthur is. Quiet and expectant, as if he doesn’t know what Arthur will do and is preparing himself for anything.

Arthur has to remind himself that he’s the killer here. The brute and the thug. The debt collector. This man can’t hurt him; is probably afraid of him. Which is a good thing, of course. It means protection. It means he won’t risk anything rash or explosive. Maybe he won’t try to hurt Arthur even a little. 

The stove is on, though. There’s grease in the pan and on the spatula. Mr. Johnson seems like the type who would enjoy burning.

Arthur keeps his distance.

He debates stepping back out into the hallway. Retreating to his room and letting the food come to him, but his leg hurts something fierce now, and he’s not so sure he would make it. So he reaches for the doorframe instead. Lets it take some of the weight from his ankle and starts to breathe in slow, soothing rhythms again.

“Are you a culinary student?” It bursts throughout the quiet like a gunshot - makes Arthur jump, flinch, slip from the doorframe in surprise. He staggers, rights himself, and scowls at the other man reflexively.

Then he blinks, brows furrowing. “A what?!”

“An enthusiast?”

“A who?” Arthur has no clue what’s going on. He can’t tell whether to be wary or trusting - can’t get a read on this man at all. 

Mr. Johnson frowns at him, gaze inscrutable, and it makes the hairs on Arthur’s neck stand to attention. “Do you cook? Or like cooking?” The man asks, and Arthur stares at him, mouth open in surprise.

“I, uh...no? I mean, I like eating. Does that count?”

Mr. Johnson sighs, turning back to his noodles. Stirring them at a leisurely pace. “No.” 

“Oh.” Arthur pushes back whatever unwarranted disappointment he feels at that and steps further into the kitchen. 

It’s a small, cramped thing, combined with a small dining room area holding a table and four chairs. It’s clearly lived in and clearly loved. Well worn edges and frequently used tools. Cabinets scratched and nicked. Countertops cleaner than a polished window, scarred with old knife marks and small circular indentations. A tiny black coffee maker falling apart at one end of the counters while an old, dented and dinged up microwave sits at the other. Then, right in the middle of them, the stove. An ancient white gas stove with black grates on the burners and a black door for the oven.

Such a small space holds so much, too. Piled with rectangular wooden spatula holders and stacks of placemats. An old knife block, almost empty of knives, next to a new one bristling with shining silver handles, never used. Napkins and bowls of mixes - bowls of food. A crate of eggs laid open next to a jug of milk. Rows of measuring cups and piles of spilled flour. A smattering of white over the table where bread was rolled.

It’s so much. Too much. Too much in such a little space, piled onto and onto endlessly, without mercy. Yet nothing’s broken as a result of it. Not yet. So it’s a sturdy thing, too. Reliable.

And pleasing, in a way. Filled with care. Welling with dedication and adoration. Cozy and homey and warm. With big windows and floral curtains thin enough to catch a breeze. And Arthur would never admit it. Not to anybody and especially not to Mr. Johnson, but he likes the place more than he should.

The best thing about it right now, though, is the smell. It’s heady in the air. A savory, mouth watering scent that makes Arthur’s stomach rumble as soon as he notices. 

Lured in by the sights and the smells, head fuzzy with the thought of food and the memory of pain, Arthur cautiously approaches. He stays a safe distance away from the sizzling sounds and the steady, easy movements over by the stove. He instead limps over to take a seat at the dining room table, picking the chair furthest from the kitchen.

“Do you like chow mein?”

Arthur eyes the figure in the kitchen warily. “Um, what?”

“Noodles with vegetables? Stir fry?” Mr. Johnson turns to look back at him, still closed off, but curious enough for it to show in the crease of his eyes.

Arthur shakes his head mutely, feeling dumber than a doorpost - large and intrusive in this small, isolated piece of heaven. Awkward in front of the man he’d threatened, so easy in his own skin now. So in his element. This is turf Arthur is incapable of navigating. Turf he could surely die in.

He teeters on the edge of reacting. Gut deep and instinctive - lashing out. Attacking to throw his opponent from the scent of weakness. He purses his lips, ducks his head, and restrains the urge as well as he can. He’s stupid but he’s not that stupid. He’s barely able to walk and he has no idea where Charles is, but the man is probably close by. And that’s not even considering what Mr. Johnson is capable of.

It occurs to Arthur that he doesn’t know much about what Mr. Johnson is capable of. Doesn’t know much about these people at all.

“How do your hands feel?”

“My hands?!” Mr. Johnson isn’t exactly helping to clear things up, either.

“Can you chop? Use a knife?” 

Instantly, the words set a fire in his chest. Make the alarms in his head start blaring with ear shattering ferocity. Alarms that say this is a trap. This is a threat. No answer is the right one.

He jerks his hands from the table. Curls them in his lap and hunches his shoulders. Collapses in on himself and squeezes his eyes shut. Tries not to think about the gummy feel of fear in his mouth. The writhe of panic in his gut. 

Coming out here was a bad idea. It was a really - 

“Are you ok?” From right beside him. Loud and startling. Arthur’s heartbeat skyrockets and the world tilts. “You’re upset.” _Vulnerable. Weak._

Arthur shakes his head. Attempts to make his tongue work; to make his lips move. Feels like he’s underwater, pushed and pressured on all sides. Reminds himself that he’s the threat here. That he’s the thing to be afraid of. But it doesn’t work. The water presses down, seeps in, drowns him -

“I’m sorry.” 

And the water’s gone. Rushing from the room in a booming, whooshing noise of white static. Arthur pants, opens his eyes and sees sparks. Focuses on the words. 

They’re said again.

“I’m sorry.” Sincere. An open spread of emotions. Concern and distress and care. “It was something I said, wasn’t it? I did this last time, too. I made you afraid.” 

Something in Arthur takes offense at that. Rises against it. He clenches his jaw and looks away. Works his throat before speaking. “I ain’t afraid!” It comes out a rasp. Thready and weak. Arthur hates it. “And I ain’t no whimpering babe neither. I’m fine. I can take it.”

“Ok.” And it’s disbelieving, but it doesn’t push. Stays a safe distance away. “If you’re certain.” Just like that, Mr. Johnson leaves it and backs away.

Arthur relaxes into the space, breathing out carefully as he hears Mr Johnson walk back over to the stove. A long stretch of silence follows their encounter, filled only with the sizzling of a pan and the occasional pause to mix a bowl of food. There’s clanging and hissing. Small scrapes and the bang of a board being set down. The ring of silverware.

Arthur tries and fails to restrain his curiosity. Ends up attempting to peer over at it all through his lashes. He reckons this is where all of his food comes from. In the kitchen and the dining room where Mr. Johnson makes it.

“My name is Ji.”

Arthur flicks his eyes to the other man. He’s still working on his pan of food, sprinkling things in and tending to it. Uncaring of the killer at his back. But his words say he knows Arthur is still there, watching him.

This is the man who’s been cooking for him. Who’s been feeding him. Mr Johnson is opening up a conversation, offering even more than he already has - offering information. Arthur figures he at least owes the guy something. So he opens his mouth. Then closes it, licking his lips. Opens it for a second time. Knows he’s going to regret this, but - “Arthur.”

Mr. Johnson actually seems surprised by his answer. Looking back at Arthur again with inquisitive blue eyes.

“Arthur,” Mr. Johnson repeats, voice a low hum, sounding attentive. And Arthur expects any number of things next. Questions and interrogations. Vicious digs into his history or his motivations. Hell, even subtle threats or the start of violence. Yet none of that comes. Instead, Mr Johnson turns back to his food and asks, “do you mind helping me chop vegetables?”

And hell, Arthur’s got nothing better to do.

So he says yes.

\---

There are long stretches of silence and then there are rambling monologues. Working with Mr Johnson is a strange combination of both, following a pattern Arthur can never seem to figure out.

The silences are nice. Mindful and pleasant as they both fall into the deep of their own thoughts. Each working on something much too engrossing to engage the other. They’re comfortable things, and Arthur doesn’t mind them, but he doesn’t like them either.

No, it’s the rambles that Arthur takes to. The talking that he ends up loving, though he doesn’t do much of it himself. It’s the endless words that Mr Johnson seems to contain. Words that spill from him in bursts. Words that carry facts and answers - knowledge beyond anything Arthur’s ever heard. Things about food and where it comes from and the chemistry of it all. Science and reactions and mixtures and the use of temperature. How things work and what makes them go.

Then it’s about culture and holidays and rituals - the elaborate practices and histories of certain foods. And Arthur learns about who eats what and when they eat. Why things are eaten and how important specific foods are. He learns of people he’d never even known existed and foods he’d have considered mere myths before now.

He also learns about nutrients and food groups. How to cook and how to bake. How to slice noodles and pound dough and combine spices. The many ways to chop something and the importance of measuring ingredients. Everything and anything about food, Mr. Johnson seems to know, sharing it readily and unashamedly with the world

And Arthur soaks it all up eagerly - greedily. Wishing desperately for his journal or some paper. Fingers twitching for a pencil to write it all down; to put thoughts and lessons into permanent marks of proof. To keep the knowledge between protected pages, lest he ever forget it.

Shooting with Hosea was the last time Arthur ever felt this happy. Basking in the freedom of learning - the temptation of knowledge. With someone at his side so willing to speak through it all, who’s words don’t make him feel lesser or stupid. Who can take his big clumsy hands and guide them through delicate, crucial motions without fear. Empty of harsh, gripping punishment and the fear of failure.

Kind. Easy. Rhythmic.

Arthur is a fool.

He forgets where he is. In the moments as they pass. In the process of it all. Easing through awkward movements until they become smooth; reveling in the joy of something new - something simple and nonviolent; falling into peace and quiet; following the steady guidance of Mr Johnson. It is so easy to forget. To throw every worry away in the roll of waves. The coolness of the air and the warm, muted darkness of a rainy overcast. The scent of generosity in the room; the feeling of giving. 

So Arthur forgets

He forgets that he’s the enemy. 

He forgets to steal. Forgets to run. Forgets to fight. Forgets to hate-

-is happy.

And he’s a damn fool for it. A goddamned traitor and an idiot and a sorry excuse of an enforcer. A disgrace to the gang and to Dutch.

But he can’t quite bring himself to regret it. 

And that’s what makes it so much worse.

\---

The Johnsons and Charles are a family. 

Arthur’s not blind. He can see it in everything they do. In the ways they talk about each other. The ways they protect each other. It’s a small, uneven thing. One with strange people and stranger dynamics still, but that’s how most families are, Arthur thinks - Arthur _knows_.

Families are strange things, after all. And to Arthur especially, they’ve never been anything other than strange. 

Perhaps that’s why he can see it so clearly. Perhaps that’s why it’s so easy to recognize. Because he sees the gang in them. Sees the broken, jagged pieces caught and come together in the Johnsons and Charles just as they had for Arthur with those he loves.

After all the years and all the hardships. All the botched jobs and near death saves and shows of trust - after everything. If there is one thing Arthur knows, its family. The strange, wild, utterly terrifying connection of bonds that will never break. Bonds that hold you to them forever.

The gang is family. Dutch and Hosea are family. Tilly and Mary-Beth and Karen, all like younger sisters to him; precious and untouchable - so very kind and smart and deserving of so much better. Javier, too, is family. Alive and full of life, but when he’d come to them he’d been beaten and starved. He’d been desperate for connection just as much as the rest of them. And when he’d finally found it, he’d been lifted high on impenetrable wings. Another light in Arthur’s life. Another person to protect.

All of them - every single one of them - Arthur loves more than anything.

But it’s different, with some. It’s different with John. 

John is his brother. The one he’s known the longest - protected the longest. His only brother. 

Even thinking it makes Arthur angry sometimes, because of them all - of the whole lot of them - John is the one Arthur would give everything for. Every single piece and parcel of his miserable, worthless life. And he’d thought John felt the same. Until John left.

Strange, how family works. 

More strange, though, is how brothers work.

Arthur had met John after only a year of being on the streets. Both of them dirty and filthy and feral. Trying to steal from each other. Fighting each other. Scratching nails and tearing teeth and no idea how to fight, not really.

Except Arthur had known more about it than John. 

Of course he did. He still does.

Arthur has always been good at fighting. At first, young and small and soft, so very new to it all, the fights had been different. Dirtier and flightier, full of whip quick thrusts and dirt in the eyes. Grueling and messy tussles resulting in the jab of sharp elbows and below the belt kicks. Dishonest. Unforgivable.

Attacking at night is nothing new to Arthur. Even then, as a child, it had been so easy - so painfully, irresistibly easy. Sneaking had been second nature to him. Melting into the shadows, slitting throats through the gentle lull of sleep, stealing away with everything his victims had packed and buried - hidden from prying eyes. But not from Arthur. Never from Arthur.

And as he’d gotten older the fights had gotten heavier. Punches to knock people out and tackles to throw them to the earth. Dodging unsteady blows and butting heads. Hitting and bashing and breaking until nothing remained but paste. Yet it was always dirty. Always underhanded. Never anything but steely experience and the resolve to survive. To win no matter what.

Arthur has always been good at fighting. 

It comes natural to him. Instinctive. A born predator.

Even as a child, he’d known it in his fists and his legs. Felt it in the rise of his shoulders and the balls of his feet. Hard, quick hits and springing, thick muscle. Powerful. Invincible.

Not John, though. John has never been good at fighting.

Young John. Wide eyed John. Innocent and feral, snarling John. Stick thin and angry and unable to even so much as close his fist correctly. 

John had to work for his ability to fight. Had to study it and practice it. Had to master it. He’d had to be taught how to fight; learn how to.

In the end, despite everything, he learned it from Arthur

Because Arthur hadn’t killed him that day they’d met. Finally atop the squirming, insolent pest who’d tried to steal from him. Finally able to stab him and hit him. To beat him and kill him, should he wish to. Arthur could have done any number of things to John.

Yet he hadn’t.

One small act of kindness. The only act of nonviolence Arthur has ever committed. And with it he’d been gifted a brother.

Families are a strange thing, Arthur thinks. 

But stranger, still, is how families are made.

And he wonders how the Johnsons were made. How Charles was made. How they came together.

\---

Returning to his room after spending hours in the kitchen with Mr. Johnson is disorienting. The small, closed in space is dark with the fading day, gray and dull beneath the mass of thickening clouds in the sky. It isn’t airy. Isn’t cluttered. Lays bare and quiet with the hollow emptiness of love’s absence. 

Arthur doesn’t care about his room. He hates the damn thing and he hates going back to it. But Mr. Johnson says Charles is on his way home from wherever the hell he’d been, and so now Arthur is stuck in his tiny lonely closet. Again.

With that goddamned bed.

Arthur drags himself over to it slowly, and with every step he feels more tired. Drained. When he finally reaches the edge he tips over. Falls gratefully into the soft, plush cradle of cotton. Sinks against the covers and presses his face to the pillows. Sleeps.

A knock wakes him.

It cuts through silence and hazy dreams like a knife. Makes him jolt away from the pillows and turn, scrambling, to face whoever’s there. 

There’s hardly a light in the room to see by. Only the barest hint of moonlight bleeds through the pound of rain outside. Much too dark to get a good look at the door. Arthur shakes away the grog of reluctant awareness, head throbbing with renewed vigor, and coughs through a dried throat as he tries to speak.

“Are you alright?” Charles’s voice comes through the door. He doesn’t sound very concerned, but he doesn’t sound uncaring, either. A welcome change of pace from the Johnsons’ unbearable kindness. 

This is a man who Arthur can hate.

“‘M fine!” He calls out, scratchy and irritated. “The hell do you want, anyhow?”

“I thought you might like to eat. Seems you must have forgotten after you left the kitchen.”

 _Fuck_. “I told you I don’t need no keeper! What you think I was gonna do, anyway?! I ain’t exactly fightin’ fit right now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I told you-”

“Go shove it up yo’ ass.”

“You’re unbearable,” Charles snaps. It’s venomous and frustrated - not at all what Arthur had been expecting. “Come take the food or let me in. I’m sick of this.”

Arthur scoffs, sneering in the other man’s direction. He knows Charles can’t see it. Knows, still, that Charles will be able to hear it in his voice. “Bad day at the ranch, egg-sucker?”

“You ain’t nearly as tough as you act!” Furious and white hot. Then, with a force of breath, “ _Arthur._ ”

And the world tilts. Arthur’s breath escapes him. Dizzying and fast. Makes him blink, wordless, at the door.

Charles just said his name. Smooth tones and hard accentuation. Angry. But it didn't sound bitter or cruel. Hadn’t been spat insultingly. Instead, it had been intense. Rolling from full lips, exasperated and experimental, having never been said before. Arthur wishes very suddenly that he’d opened the door. That he’d been there for it; seen it happen.

“I don’t-um.” He shakes his head again, but the fog of sleep still won’t rise. Maybe he shouldn’t have been up and about so much today. “I can’t-” He catches himself, blood rushing. Realizes he’d been about to let slip that he can’t move. Tries to dislodge the sleepiness again but it remains, stubborn as a burr. Unmoving.

Charles had said his name. 

He flutters his lashes and stares at the door, vision blurring. Tries to remember why the thought sticks in his mind.

“You can’t what?” Arthur latches onto the voice. The subtle, soothing tones of it. Quiet and strong. He wants to wrap himself in it. “Arthur?” It sends a buzz along his skin.

“Hmmm.”

“Hey!” It jerks him awake again, confused, inhaling deeply. The room floods with light, door flinging against the wall. “Arthur. Hey, don’t go to sleep.” And it’s Charles. In front of him, talking to him. He tries to keep his eyes open and make his ears work, but the world’s turned muted and his eyelids feel heavy. 

“Can you still hear me? I need you to stay awake. Arthur.” It’s a voice. Sounding so distressed. So worried. 

Arthur wants to smooth it all away. He hums lowly - to soothe; to help. Yet the voice just keeps going. Higher and higher. Uncontrollable. So he reaches out, brushes his fingers clumsily over swollen skin and long lashes. Finds silken strands and the smooth line of small braids. Pats at it comfortingly. 

Rough fingers come to meet Arthur’s own, curling softly into his palm and pulling it away. Blunt and large, clasping gently. Another hand like the other comes to hold the fold of their fingers steady against Arthur’s heartbeat. He hums again to hear the vibrations against his skin; hopes it soothes the owner of the other hand, too.

“What’s wrong with him?” He hears through the din of a cave. “He was fine seconds ago.”

There’s another voice, but Arthur can’t hear it. The universe falls away in pieces. Small, delicate things. The light leaves him and the sound leaves him and all he’s left with is the cradle of fingers covering his own.

Then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: injury recovery, head trauma, derogatory language/insults, fear of punishment, implied/referenced torture, references to starvation, graphic violence, panic attacks, negative self talk, self hatred, negative self esteem, implied/referenced unhealthy relationship, referring to trauma reactions and temporary mental disabilities as weak/pathetic/pitiful, unintentional misgendering.
> 
> A/N  
> Hey guys! I really hope you like this chapter. I had an especially hard time with it. I tried to edit it, but eventually just had to give up on butchering it and leave it alone. I might actually end up coming back and fixing things up if I feel the need. But hopefully it's good enough for now alskjdflaj. I'm also going to say that I really, really need you guys's honest opinions right now! What do you guys think about the writing? The dialogue? Where do you want it to go? What are your favorite parts? Opinions on the OCs? Stuff like that. I need some good feedback because I'm feeling conflicted about a lot of things and some of you guys's opinions might help quite a bit. For this chapter, unsolicited advice/opinions is no longer unsolicited.  
> Anyways, sorry for the ramble. Thanks so much for reading! I hope everybody is doing okay and I promise the next chapter is coming soon. It will probably be Charles POV because a lot went on with him while Arthur got to know the Johnsons. Some context for that last scene would probably be nice lol.
> 
> Songs Listened To:  
> -Deep Water by American Authors  
> -I’m Not Afraid by Tommee Profitt, Wondra  
> -Become the Beast by Karliene
> 
> =====  
> SPOILERS  
> =====  
> So, for those of you worried about where this fic is going, the story won't stagnate at the Johnsons' house forever. I plan on tackling a large plot as well as the honor system, and I can't do all of that by keeping Arthur in one place. However, the Johnsons will still remain in the story even after Arthur leaves. So, for those of you that like the dynamic between Arthur and them, rest assured they will still exist and be in his life, just not as much. I want to focus on Charles and Arthur's relationship a lot more in the future, so here's hoping.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles just wants to find a notebook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see endnotes for trigger warnings and author's note

It occurs to Charles, halfway between home and Emerald Ranch’s small bookstore, that he doesn’t even know the name of the man he’s buying a journal for. That he doesn’t know much about the man at all, except that he’s a debt collector and a bruiser and currently trapped in the Johnsons’ house.

A prisoner, by all rights. Or at the very least someone on house arrest. No friend or ally of theirs.

Yet Charles is buying him a notebook. Is considering, only now - after a quiet, hesitant request and the vulnerable curl of broad shoulders - what the man’s name might be.

Charles needs to be careful. 

This man isn’t some unfortunate hero or disadvantaged knight; isn’t some misunderstood do-gooder thrown into a bad situation. This man is a criminal and a threat. He’s a violent, unrepentant thug. Who not only a week ago had come calling for the torn remains of the Johnsons’ livelihoods, despite knowing it would kill them - uncaring of the cost.

Charles can’t allow himself to forget it. He can’t be blinded to the danger of the situation because of how they got here. Can’t let the man’s current weakness and injury mask the predator lying in wait. Can’t allow himself to be caught off guard.

It’s a dangerous game the Johnsons are playing, healing and tending to the man that threatened them and harassed them. The man that holds the proof of their unpaid debt. Who works for the people they owe money to. All because he’d decided, in a moment of whimsy, head cracked and bleeding and brain scattered to the winds, to save Charles’s life. 

The stakes are too high; the situation too unstable. Ji and Sheila are in danger. There’s a killer locked in their closet.

And here Charles is. About to buy the man a book. Thinking of his name - only wondering about it now, after everything. With memories of light, easy jokes and the warmth of another in his arms simmering low at the back of his mind.

It had been harder to care when all Charles knew of him was wicked vitriol and words spat like poison. Acerbic and dumb and derogatory, full of mockery and no care for those who’d helped him - those he’d hurt.

It had been easy to hate the man, then. To shun his name and his presence. To try and convince Ji and Sheila his sacrifice was worth a hospital, not their time and their care and their fraying nerves. Because he’d saved Charles’s life, but that didn’t make him a good man. It didn’t make him worth more than the people Charles cared about - the people he loved.

Except that then, suddenly, it hadn’t been vile insults. Then it had been sickening gratitude and small flinches. Surprise at the most basic of kindnesses. It had been harried, desperate eating and the small, hesitant request for paper, of all things - voice taut with fear and body hunched in on itself.

It had been moments invariably human. Unavoidably vulnerable. Moments that stuck to Charles, no matter how hard he’d tried to shake them.

It was a weakness on Charles’s part, letting such things get to him. He’d dropped his guard and lowered his walls. Had recalled, only for a moment, the shadow of fear haunting his mother’s absence. The impossible bid for freedom and the stark terror that had lingered years afterwards - never truly falling away, not completely.

Had recalled, in just a second, his own small body, curled beneath a towering figure of fury and rage. 

He doesn’t like to think of such things. 

This man, though, he makes it hard. Makes it harder, still, when he’s committed such awful crimes himself. 

Charles doesn’t trust him - he can’t. Not after everything. He doesn’t at all trust the other man’s agreement to stay. Doesn’t trust that he’s without ulterior motives; that there isn’t some hidden ploy. That he doesn’t still think he can leverage this situation against the Johnsons. Take advantage of their hospitality and then stab them in the backs. 

The man is a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow. Charles knows it. He can see it, clear as day, in everything the man does. And he doesn’t want the Johnsons anywhere nearby when things eventually combust.

Charles worries about leaving Ji and Sheila alone with him, even now. Worries for their safety in his presence. For their livelihoods in his hands. 

Every second away from them makes Charles anxious to get back. Yet he knows this is the best time to leave - the best time to get things done. While the man is still injured and delirious, less likely to strike. Weak and unsteady.

It doesn’t feel good, though.

And the road to Emerald Ranch isn’t a long one, but Charles hurries anyway.

\---

While he’s out, Charles decides to check on Rains Fall. He hasn’t seen the man in a while and he’s worried about the shop. Charles is in a rush but he isn’t in so much of a rush that he can’t visit the man who’s done so much for him. So he stops by Strawberry on the way to Emerald Ranch.

It’s midmorning by the time he pulls up in front of _Wapiti Woods_ , and small drops of rain play a delicate song on the windshield of his car as he parks along the curb. Rains Fall is already pushing out the doors to greet him when Charles steps from the car, a genuine smile splitting his face. 

“Charles,” he says warmly, “it is good to see you back!”

Charles can’t help but return the sentiment, roughly clasping hands with the other man. It feels amazing to see Rains Fall again. To see that their little store hasn’t fallen to ruin in his absence. “It’s good to be back, my friend,” he replies, and it’s the happiest he’s sounded in days, “how is everything?”

“Better than alright!” Rains Fall laughs. “My son has taken a shine to the store recently. A surprise to all of us. I may just make a woodcarver out of him yet! But...” The cheer quickly falls away. Rains Fall shakes his head as they part, smile dimming. His brows pull down with concern. “What brings you back so early? Is all well with your family?”

Charles looks away and sighs. He’s unsure what he should let Rains Fall know, but he’s got to tell him something. Charles owes him that, at the very least. “It’s...complicated. Things are worse than I’d imagined, and the situation wasn’t handled well. We’re stuck in a bad place, right now, but it’s...best if I don’t tell you the rest.”

It hurts to say it, and Charles worries for a moment that Rains Fall won’t take well to the implications, but the man just hums, the lines of his face drawn deep with consternation. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, and even his voice sounds old now, a waver to it like sadness and fear, “Perhaps my son and I can help in some way?”

“No, that wouldn’t be the best idea. You’re safe here and we’re safe where we are. There’s no need to push things.”

“Of course, Charles. Of course. But please try to stay that way, I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

Charles shakes his head, heart swelling, and thinks this is truly the best man he’s ever known. “I will, thank you. And...thank you - for everything. You’ve always treated me right.”

Rains Fall chuckles and smiles again, but it’s not a happy one. His lines only deepen around it, eyes shrouded with worry. As if on cue, the sky starts to darken further, rain falling quick and hard. 

Charles ducks his head against it, attempting to blink away the water so he can see Rains Fall better. It doesn’t quite work, and he can see the other man beginning to squint as well, an arm coming to rest over his head.

“Only as much as you deserve,” Rains Fall finally says, and his voice is a bit louder than usual - the volume slightly muffled - but Charles still has to swallow down the lump that threatens to choke him at the words. “I’m sorry my son isn’t here to see you. I know you two...well, you don’t get along, but I think he would have liked to check up on you. You know how he is.”

A huff of laughter escapes Charles before he can stop it. It’s a welcome break to the solemnity - just what he needs - and he grins slightly with the thought. “I do. He’s a good man.” 

“That he is. Now go! The sky won’t last much longer, I think, and I know you have places to be.”

Charles gives a sharp nod and fruitlessly tries to brush the water from his hair. He turns and rounds his car, giving Rains Fall a parting wave. “I’ll return soon, sir. I promise.”

The other man waves back at him, hair blowing slightly in the wind. His clothes are beginning to soak under the sudden downpour, and a crack of thunder rips violently through the air. He shouts to be heard. “That was never in doubt, Charles!” He yells, retreating back to the safety of the shop, “Take as long as you need!”

“It won’t be too long!” Charles calls out, heaving the door closed behind him in a resonating slam. 

And then there’s silence.

A small pocket of peace - dark, shrouded quiet - amidst the wash of rain battering the hard metal walls of his shelter. He sits for a while, breathing steadily into it, and soon small drops start to form at the edges of his clothes, falling to the floor. A rhythmic, dim cadence to break him from his thoughts. Charles grips the wheel tightly and closes his eyes, holding back a sigh. 

There are so many problems to take care of. So much trouble gathered in so little time. Mysterious men in suits and relentless debt collectors and killers with head trauma sleeping in the same house as them. Ji and Sheila are surrounded by danger now. Closed in on all sides by it. They’d come so close to death the other day. Charles had, too. And he has to push it all from his mind. Has to focus on the turn of the key and the rev of the engine. Has to focus on the rumble beneath his palms, the glide of houses past his window, the flash of lightning that whites out the world.

Hopefully, it will all be over soon.

But, knowing his luck, he doubts it will be.

\---

Charles arrives at Emerald Ranch a short drive later. Finding the bookstore is a trip and a half, and heading inside is even more so. It’s a rush of slamming doors and harried footsteps. The pound of rain a ceaseless and vicious adversary.

Charles hadn’t brought an umbrella with him when he left, and he’s beginning to regret that decision now more than any other, because he uses his jacket to protect his head instead, like a damn fool, and then ends up with a soaked jacket _and_ shirt as well as soaked hair. 

When he bursts through the door, drenched and dripping and shivering, the cashier looks utterly unimpressed. She stares at him for one judgemental second, pinning him beneath steely gray eyes, then raises her manicured brows at him critically before going back to reading the massive textbook on the counter next to her scanner. 

Charles has to push away the thick wet curtain of hair covering his face to peer back over at her, but she’s already tuned him out completely. 

He decides to leave her to it.

He tries to dry off a bit at the entrance before he does anything, lingering awkwardly beneath the din of the pallid yellow store lighting, but after a time the woman’s long suffering, passive aggressive huffs start to get louder. So he ends up tracking in some water anyway as he flees from her anger to move past the initial display books. They’re sorted out by color onto small wooden stands placed to form pentagon shapes, and he spares them a suitably wary glance before wandering further into the store. 

He goes by the maze of fantasy shelves first, edging around the cluster of fiction novels at the center of it, and then presses through the massive sci fi section. After that is the short, disorganized nonfiction section and the puzzlingly stunted shelves of the language section. Then it’s books for kids and books for teenagers and books on dogs and cats and books on religion and books on cooking and finally - _finally_ \- Charles ends up at the back of the store. Only to stop dead in front of a wall full to brimming - floor to ceiling - with romance novels.

He heads back to the front of the store.

The woman at the checkout does not look happy to see him again.

“Can I help you with something?” She snaps angrily, teeth almost pulling into a snarl. A hint of sharp white flashes for only a second behind painted red lips, and Charles swears it was fangs.

He studiously tries to ignore it as he approaches, but an uncomfortable feeling is settling in his gut. One that tells him he should probably run. He frowns uneasily, glancing back at the confusing mass of books that makes up the store. “Hm,” he says, pausing, then, “where are your notebooks?”

“Our what?”

“Your journals. Where do you keep empty journals?”

“Oh, we don’t have those here.”

Charles blinks in shock. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, you should be.” She sighs aggressively at him and slams her book shut, the title reading _Occultist Practices In The Double Planes._ Then she picks up the scanner, rings up the book, and dumps it in the bin next to her full of other massive textbooks. “You got a fucking problem?!”

“Uh...hm,” Charles says again.

And then he leaves.

\---

Emerald Ranch only has one bookstore, despite being a rather large town. Not that Charles wants to visit any other store in Emerald Ranch ever again, after whatever the hell just happened. So he looks up other places that sell books in the area, hoping maybe Valentine or Strawberry have something similar enough to a bookstore to pass.

Unfortunately, nothing turns up. Nothing except another real bookstore. One all the way out in the city, at least a half an hour's drive away.

Charles purses his lips and glares down at his phone. Debates going back to the Johnsons and leaving this all for another day. Worries that he’s been gone too long - wasted too much time. Left them in too much danger.

But the Johnsons aren’t children and Charles isn’t their watcher. They’re capable of taking care of themselves - could probably even put the debt collector in the ground with their own guns if they ever needed to. They're certainly less injured than the man right now, too. Infinitely more capable of harm.

No, Charles gave his word. He made a promise. And despite everything - despite the fact that the man’s an ass and a criminal and a debt collector and a threat and Charles doesn’t even know his name - he can’t go back on his word now. Can’t let that hesitant, hopeful, so very human request be snuffed from the world like it doesn’t mean a thing.

So he clenches his jaw, sets his muscles, revs the engine again, and leaves Emerald Ranch. 

He leaves for the city.

\---

Good people are hard to find in this world, and Charles has not met many. He would even say, some days, that he hasn’t met a single one. 

The shaping of a good person is not an easy thing, Charles knows. He knows, also, that it is _hard_ to be a good person. That in a world so full of cruelty, having a code - sticking to it despite everything - is next to impossible. 

Charles has a code. He’s always had a code, no matter that he’d had no one to share that code with, before. And he knows he is not the best man. Sometimes he is not even a good one. Yet he is decent. He tries, where he can, when he can spare it, to stick to his code. To be compassionate and to help - to care. To keep his promises and to aid those in need. To do right by others no matter the obstacles that may arise.

It was not the loneliness that made him like this, he knows. It was not the silence he lived in for so many years that gave him vision, nor the self reliance necessitated by solitude that caused his regard. 

No, the things that made him like this were singular moments. They were memories. 

Memories of a touch, soft against his small hands to help cradle a book of animals. Of a home when all else was lost, provided through sacrifice and the temper of resolve. Of a stick held steady while another tied a string. Of a table made from labor and care with seats for all, eternally welcoming. Memories of people and of moments, pure and unbridled, filled with love.

It was his mother’s strong, unconditional presence at his side. It was Ji and Sheila’s chipper, easy camaraderie and endless goodwill. It was others, over time, that helped him find the truth of himself. It was a string of human kindnesses, forever growing and never ending - following the curve of his path faithfully, held tight and guided with care so as to never let it stray.

It is that, out of everything in Charles’s life, that makes the weight of a promise rest so heavily. That makes the truth of his word so valuable to him.

It is that, out of everything, which leads Charles to Saint Denis.

And it is not, in any way, the fall of blonde hair before startling blue eyes and the short, restless fidget of fingers along the sleeves of a shirt slightly too big.

\---

The first thing Charles notices about Saint Denis is that it’s loud. Excessive and chaotic and wild with bustling activity. It isn’t the first time Charles has been to the big city, but it is the first time he’s truly stopped to look at it.

It is everything and nothing like he’d expected.

He ends up having to park in a garage nearby, walking on foot to the nearest bookstore under the pouring rain. It’s frustrating and humiliating and he tries to distract himself with the things around him, but all he ends up noticing are the stores he passes. A variety of places he’d never even known could exist until now. Places like exclusive lamp shops and diners that are half hair salons and restaurants that only serve salads. Places like art themed gyms and and coffee themed tea shops and tea themed coffee shops and everything and anything so utterly ridiculous that Charles could possibly imagine.

And throughout it all, the crowds are endless. Sidewalks swarming with people in a rush to get home. Umbrellas shaking rain onto those without them and coats billowing to throw arcs of flying droplets.

It is complete havoc. A tumultuous series of collisions and bruises and splashes of mud water that soak him to the bone and cake him in grime, punctuated only by the increasingly absurd appearances of bright and impossible tourist attractions. And by the end of it, pouring furiously through the door of a bookshop with a broken sign - one he’d had to pass _three times_ before he noticed it - Charles has only learned one thing.

He fucking hates the city.

“Can I help you?” The brunette at the register asks kindly. She looks sympathetic when Charles slops over to her, but he’s past the point of caring.

Still, he tries to put a modicum of calmness into his tone, if only to keep from scaring her. He probably doesn’t cut a very trustworthy figure right now. “Where can I find the journals? Day planners or notebooks? Anything?”

“Oh, um. Just over in the far corner, sir,” she stutters, looking up at him with wide, fearful eyes.

Charles feels almost guilty at the sight of them, sighing and nodding before deciding to get this over with. He hurries to the back of the store in squeaking shoes and arrives at the section the girl had mentioned quickly. When he sees what’s in it, his heart soars.

There, shining like a beacon beneath the harsh white artificial lighting, is a stand full of notebooks.

Charles has never been so relieved in all his life.

He doesn’t much care what the debt collector prefers at this point, so he goes to grab the first one available. Then pauses, fingers brushing the cheap plastic cover, as another book catches the corner of his eye.

It’s a red, medium sized journal. Leather bound and well made, with a sleek finish and crisp, authentic pages. And on the cover, large and majestic, surrounded by a frame of twisting, intricate vines, is the imprint of a bison. It’s a full body portrayal depicting a peaceful scene, with the bison’s large, fluffy head lowered serenely and the small horns on display. 

Charles clears his throat. Glances around, face heating. 

Then grabs it.

Huffs awkwardly, shoving it beneath his arm, and makes his way back to the timid brunette. This journal is much better quality, anyway. The debt collector should be grateful Charles is wasting so much money on this whole endeavor.

Charles is just happy he can finally leave this place. Finally get back to Ji and Sheila and make sure everything is alright. Finally get out of this overwhelming city full of people and away from...whatever the hell is happening at Emerald Ranch.

Except that when he approaches the counter, the cashier isn't alone anymore. Another man stands across from her, tall and imposing. One who Charles hadn’t heard enter. He’s wearing a slick black suit and fine black gloves, and his shoes glint under the store’s bright lights. 

As does his gun and the handle of a long, slim knife hidden inside his suit jacket.

Charles immediately drops to the ground, dodging behind a nearby bookshelf. He tucks his journal in his jacket’s inner pocket for safekeeping and peaks around the edge of the shelf, trying to hear what the man is saying to the cashier.

“...about this tall,” is all Charles can make out before there’s a short, ensuing silence. Then the brunette responds with something, voice shaking, close to tears, and the man speaks again, words clear as day. “His name is Charles Smith and he’s a very dangerous man, miss. I have reliable information that he was last seen here.”

Charles sucks in a quiet breath and tenses. He looks around briefly. Sees the uncaring rush of people past the windows. Sees the dark smog of a rainy overcast and the door at the back of the store, and forms the beginnings of a plan.

Slowly, Charles creeps along the shelf’s edge until he’s near the exit, closer to the register. He unsheathes his own knife - the barest whisper of leather - and holds it loose and ready in the cradle of his fingers. The man at the counter takes a large breath and Charles tenses, poised to strike.

“If you know _anything_ …” a gun clicks in the weighted silence that follows, then, soft and dangerous, “you will tell me right now.”

“I-I don’t-!” The girl cries out, and it’s a burst of noise - loud, sobbing. Distracting.

Charles attacks. 

Slides from cover, knife in hand, quick as lightning, and strikes. Hears a gasp, the clatter of a gun and the beginnings of a scream.

He forces a hand over the man’s mouth and wrenches at the knife buried in the man’s right palm, pinning it violently to his chest. There’s a jerk beneath Charles, a muffled yell vibrating against the rigid clench of his fingers - a chin moving to scrape at his skin with the rough beginnings of stubble. Charles snarls, tightens his grip around the knife and pushes the handle further in until the other body is flush against his own. The man kicks desperately - pointlessly - yells silenced and unheard by the civilians rushing by.

Charles hears another startled inhale, this one high and panicked, and looks up from the suited man to see the young brunette, wide eyed and mouth stretched open in the parody of a scream. No noise escapes, not yet.

“Hush,” he tells her, low and soothing, “not a sound.”

Slowly, hand shaking, she places her own fingers over her lips. Shakes her head at him, tears in her eyes. Steps one, two, three times backwards until she’s in the stockroom. Charles gives her a steady nod.

“No police,” he tries to whisper, but it ends in a growl as the body beneath him seizes. Struggles. Charles responds forcefully, twisting the knife in a harsh, sudden movement and pulling the man’s skull to his chest with a violent thump. Then he looks back up at the girl. She still stands frozen, watching. Horrified. But she doesn’t move. So he takes a breath, softens his tone again. “No police,” he repeats, “we were never here.”

And she nods.

Charles repeats the gesture to her and distances himself as well, backing towards the store’s emergency exit. He drags his hostage with him, past shelves of brightly colored, cheerful children’s books and dark, grim fantasy novels. Past a tall display rack of furry stuffed animals until he’s back at the notebook section. Then, hauling the suited man’s slowly deadening weight, he pushes out of the building and into the alley behind the store.

Charles does a quick check for witnesses. They’re closed in, nobody else around, so he releases the man. Gives him no time to react before gripping his shoulder, spinning him ferociously and slamming him back into the cold brick wall with a forearm. Then he whips the knife back up, presses it delicately along the other man’s throat until he’s forced to tilt his head back, neck exposed.

The man whimpers, brown eyes wide, pupils blown. Fear heavy in the air. He swallows against the razor sharp edge and whimpers again as a line of blood forms across his pale, pallid skin.

Charles stays quiet. Lets him sit in it a moment - a sweating, trembling mess of nerves, the scent of piss slowly pervading the space around him. The man flinches at the splatter of raindrops against his eyelids. Barely dares to do much else but wait.

“What’s your name?” Charles finally demands, tone hard. The man shakes his head violently, crying, but Charles just pulls him from the wall and slams him back. Twists the knife upward until the point presses into the soft flesh below his jaw. “Who do you work for?! Answer me.”

“P-please,” the man sobs, “please don’t kill me!”

“Answer my questions and I’ll let you go.”

“You won’t. You won’t! They-they told me-”

Charles digs in the knife, pierces flesh until blood wells at the tip. “Who’s they?”

“I-I don’t-”

Charles breaths out furiously and leans in. Lets himself tower over the other man until he’s quaking and barely coherent. Feels that hot, protective rage like fire burn his skin - boil his bones. “You have five seconds.”

The suited man freezes with terror. “What?”

“What do they want with the Johnsons?”

“Please, I can’t-”

“Three...two…” He drives the knife deeper. Counts the seconds down in his head with the man’s ever rising shrieks of protest.

He will kill this man if he has to.

Then, explosively, high with terror and broken by sobs, the man cries out, “Angelo Bronte!”

Charles stills, mind racing. _Angelo Bronte._ Charles doesn’t know who that is, but it doesn’t sound good. He lets his grip relax only slightly, loosening enough to let the man breathe.

“Why?” He keeps his tone cold. Doesn’t want to let the man think he’s gone soft, but the other is already rambling on, a stuttering, quailing mess of fear and sweat and tears.

“They stole from him! They stole from him that’s all I know, I swear. I swear! Please. Please I won’t tell him. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. They’re thieves that’s all I - oh god. I - Please let me go. Oh god - oh -” The suited man takes a large breath, then stops breathing altogether, chest heaving with panic and eyes wild.

Charles sighs and steps back - lets him fall to the ground and scramble at the mud before instantly taking off on shaky legs. The man stumbles and trips. Skids and digs desperate fingers into the earth as he pushes himself up, still crying, launching headfirst out into the sea of civilians. Charles winces to himself as he watches the man go, feeling almost guilty.

Almost. 

He pats at his coat pocket, relieved at the feeling of hard leather. Then starts his long trek back to the parking garage. The rain still pours and there’s blood on his fingers now - drying on the edge of his knife. But he knows more than he had before. Is at least a small bit prepared for what’s to come. Hopefully, it’s enough to protect Ji and Sheila. To keep them safe.

Perhaps this trip wasn’t such a waste of time, after all.

Even if it was absolutely miserable.

\---

The world is already dark before nightfall, the sky beset by a fleet of roiling gray clouds. Charles pulls up to Ji and Sheila’s farmhouse amidst a torrent of rain, and has to sprint to the door in order to avoid getting drenched again. Not that it really matters, considering the state of his clothes, but he’d rather not be dripping across the wood flooring if he can help it.

He can’t help it, of course. And he _is_ dripping by the time he hurries inside, head ducked and arm curled protectively around the bulge in his jacket. But as soon as he’s inside he feels it - the return of that relaxed, comforting warmth he’d been missing all day. It wraps around him like a blanket. Makes his mind settle into passive, gentle happiness. Knowing he's safe.

“Charles!” Sheila exclaims as he slams the door behind him, her scratchy voice like music to his ears. Through the curtain of his hair he sees her rise from the kitchen table, smiling broadly, “you’re back! What took you so long, dear? We were starting to get worried.”

Charles lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Shakes his head wearily at her and takes off his jacket to hang it by the door. It drips in tune with the mess of Charles’s hair, so he gathers it all up in his hands, pulling it sideways to ring out the water. It’s heavy and tangled, and Charles winces as water streams from it in a loud, cacophonous splash against the hard wooden flooring.

“Oh my,” Sheila laughs, voice dimming as she walks from the room and down the hallway. Charles hears a door open and the rustle of cloth. “You really did a number on yourself this time!”

He hums and lets his hair go, glancing around the area to check for any signs of trouble. All he sees is a massive stack of pans in the sink and a spread of steaming dishes across the dining room table. His stomach rumbles as the scent of chow mein and baked sweet potato hits his nose, and it takes everything in his power to remain at the entrance as Sheila comes back over with some towels and a freshly cleaned shirt.

“Take your time, dear. My Ji is just in the bedroom changing, so they’ll be a while,” she says, giving him an eye crinkling, motherly smile. 

He returns one of his own, smaller and more reserved, and takes one of the proffered towels from her hands. He pauses for a moment, then snags the shirt as well. “Thanks.”

She laughs again, the sound echoing in the cluttered kitchen, and retreats into the dining room to lay the remaining towels over the back of an empty chair. “Well, you’re soaking wet, but I’m glad you’re here in time for dinner! We were beginning to worry we’d have to eat all alone. Ji and Arthur worked very hard on this, you know. Why, they spent a good three hours, at least.”

Charles freezes, fists clenching in the soft fabric of his towel. His heart sinks. “Arthur.” It comes out quiet - so quiet he's unsure it ever left his lips.

“Oh yes! He told us his name today. Such a sweet boy, once you get to know him. Though he doesn't talk much. Honestly, Charles, he’s a lot like you.”

His shoulders rise at that. Body tensing as his lips thin and his nostrils flare. That placid, relaxed feeling the Johnson's home usually gives him is flipped suddenly as the anger rises in his chest. He has to stop for a second - to remind himself to temper his emotions. To loosen his limbs, breath out slowly, press his lips together for a moment as he thinks.

They let the debt collector out of the room.

_His name is Arthur?_

The man could have hurt them. He could have killed them. Sure, he’s weak right now. Sick and injured and barely able to move, but - 

_What would his name look like on the inside of the journal’s cover - scrawled by big, scarred hands? Would it be delicate? Looping? Indecipherable chicken scratch?_

They almost died. Again. They almost - 

“Charles, I know you wanted to keep him locked away -”

The dam bursts. “He’s dangerous, Sheila. Have you forgotten what he did? What he tried to do?”

“He didn’t harm any of us!”

“Because he can’t! But that doesn’t mean he won’t try, or that he might not get lucky. He isn’t some puppy we’ve picked up off the streets. He’s a killer and a thug. He’s a criminal.” It comes out hot and loud with anger, and Charles knows he shouldn’t be snapping at Sheila like this. Knows she was only trying to do good, but his stomach twists at the thought of what could have happened to her - to the both of them.

“So are you.” Sheila sets her jaw, stubborn and furious, rising against him, “so are we.”

And that’s it. “Of _course_. Of course you are. You’re thieves.”

Just like that her stance softens, surprise making her features go slack. “What?” And it’s light - vulnerable - so Charles gentles, too. But he still pushes. He has to.

“Angelo Bronte.” He says, and the name means nothing to him but it certainly means something to her, judging by the way she immediately straightens. “I met one of his people today. Not very informative, but he told me enough.”

She blinks at him, a stream of emotions passing through her eyes that Charles could never name. Then she lowers her face and brings a hand up to cradle her forehead, expression pinched and so very stressed. “The men in suits?”

“Yes.” He wishes he’d never brought it up, but that’s an impossible fantasy. Sheila and Ji could both die from this, if they aren’t careful. Charles can’t risk it.

She exhales slowly, eyes closing, says, “oh my,” and not a thing more. Charles doesn’t expect her to, though. 

He watches her for a long while, sharing her silence. Then, after a few seconds he starts to dry himself off. Leaves her to her thoughts as he strips from his wet shirt and pulls on the clean one - long sleeved and fluffy on the inside. He moves to grab the journal from his jacket, but footsteps break the tentative peace. 

Charles looks over just in time to see Ji come rushing down the stairs.

“I heard yelling,” they say, breathless, and though their face doesn’t show it, there’s a hint of worry in the tap of fingers against their thighs.

Charles smiles apologetically and moves to Sheila’s still figure. He places a hand on her shoulder and nods at Ji. “That was me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“Was it Arthur?”

“Partially-”

“Angelo Bronte knows we’re here,” Sheila’s voice is a croak, tired and afraid. 

There’s dead silence. Then, hesitantly, “Angelo Bronte.” And Charles can’t get a read on Ji at all this time, but Sheila’s small hand comes up to pat his own very briefly before she pulls away, heading over to her partner.

Ji glances from her to Charles for a second, then nods. “Sheila and I need to talk, Charles,” they say, “can you bring Arthur some food?”

Charles frowns over at the table. “I thought he helped you cook.”

“He forgot to eat, afterward. Please, Charles.” 

And then they’re gone. 

Ji doesn’t even stop to hear his answer. Between one moment and the next, faster than Charles can open his mouth to speak, the both of them have headed upstairs together.

And Charles is left alone. Downstairs. With a table full of food. And the knowledge that there’s a very hungry killer the next room over.

So he sighs and piles up a plate. Tries not to think about the other times he’s done this. The other times he’s entered the room with food and seen that desperate, frantic need. Despite everything, he hopes this time is different. Hopes the man at least knows they won’t starve him, by this point. 

It makes something strange form in his gut to think the man doesn’t. That he thinks _Charles_ would. 

So, plate full, he goes to talk to the man. Heads down the narrow hallway to his room and knocks on the door. 

And promptly wishes he never had. 

The following encounter Charles has with him - with _Arthur_ \- is one he would rather forget. And all of the anger - all of the frustration - of the last few excruciating hours of Charles’s life finally becomes too much. Because this is a reminder. A reminder of why he hates this man - this whole situation. Why he wants him gone. Why the Johnsons shouldn’t trust him. Why he shouldn’t have gone out and gotten this ridiculous journal on this pointless quest, and left this person alone with his family.

Their argument grows heated quickly, as all things with Arthur seem to do -

And then Arthur's name falls like fire from his lips. Before he can stop it or think about it. Before he can do anything, he’s said the other man’s name. It feels nice on his tongue - comfortable in his mouth - and for one brief, shining moment the world stops. And Charles wonders what that moment would look like drawn between the pages of Arthur’s journal.

Then everything explodes into chaos. Arthur stops responding - he stops moving - and Charles rushes inside. Anger and insults and names all forgotten. Sees vibrant blue eyes only a thin, barely visible ring around expanded pupils. Sees Arthur's head roll back on the pillows, body going limp, barely conscious. Feels the other man’s hands in his hair, then in his grasp, pressed against the racing, sickeningly fast beat of Arthur’s heart.

He hears pounding behind him. Sees Sheila enter the room first, Ji following soon afterwards, and then the room falls to havoc. A flutter of activity bursts to life around Charles as he sits still at Arthur’s side. Tries to soothe him - to brush his hair from his eyes and calm the trembling in his hands.

Then Charles is being torn away. Sheila roughly pulls them apart and points sternly towards the door.

“Out!” She orders, voice cracking like a whip - no-nonsense and hard as stone.

Charles backs away. Runs into Ji, who’s still trying to approach the bed, and grabs the other by the arm. He pulls them both out of the room and turns to close the door behind them only to have it slam in his face.

And then they're alone. 

Ji's the one who pulls him, this time. Back down the hallway and into the dining room. Charles is seated at the table, before a whole host of slowly cooling foods, but he doesn't feel very hungry anymore. Ji sits down as well, shakes their head at him, looking sympathetic. Worried, even. Trying to be comforting.

Charles takes the comfort where he can. In the lukewarm meal and the silent support. Tries to think of other things.

But all he can think of is the journal sitting in his jacket pocket.

And he wonders if they'll have a body in the house, come morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: extreme violence, violent threats, interrogation/intimidation techniques, mental and physical torture, physical violence, assault, references to past abuse, references to past neglect, blood and gore, bodily fluids.
> 
> A/N  
> Charles: I'm so big and scary. A ruthless fighter with a criminal past  
> Me, screaming from the rooftops: FuCkInG NERD!!  
> Anyways I love Charles. Hopefully he's in character, here. Suspend your disbelief about the lack of notebooks literally anywhere nearby, and you'll probably be fine lol. Thank you all for your comments last chapter! They were super helpful, and if you have anything else you want to say or ask please feel free to comment on it here, too. I'm still working some things out and finding my footing, so now's the best chance. We're almost there, though! Arthur is next chapter :D
> 
> I also wanted to clear some things up, in the interest of not being a horrible person and just leaving it to reader interpretation.  
> -Ji is NONBINARY and AUTISTIC  
> -Sheila is a TRANS WOMAN, AUTISTIC, and BIPOLAR  
> It's something that will be confirmed in the fic, but that might take a while. So I just wanted to let readers know. Especially since Arthur doesn't know and we're largely in his POV.  
> Thanks again for reading this far, guys. I hope you like it :)
> 
> Songs Listened To:  
> -Wolves by Rag'n'Bone Man  
> -Blood Like Lemonade by Morcheeba  
> -Down to the Second by Zach Berkman


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bathroom adventures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see endnotes for trigger warnings and the author's note

It’s the cold that wakes Arthur. Invasive, frigid cold that seeps into his drenched shirt and runs light across sweat soaked skin. His eyelashes are moist when he opens them to blinding light, the world hazy and blurred around him. And he’s panting, shivering and shaking, muscles trembling as he tries to move them. Weak.

He thinks he may have been crying in his sleep.

He swallows down the shame. Squeezes his eyes shut to clear the fog and the tears - to push away the burn of humiliation - and opens them to peeling yellow paint and the stinging persistence of sun rays. He blinks slowly for a moment, confused - memories disjointed - and it takes him a while to realize that he’s looking at the wall beneath his bedroom window. Beaten, battered and splattered with blood. Where he’s rested and healed for the past few days.

He can’t recall what happened last night. Can’t recall much of anything, except for the pound of steps and the cradle of hands atop his own.

Is somebody still in the room with him?

Arthur can’t hear anybody else. Can’t see them. Doesn’t at all know what’s happening in the room right now. If he’s alone or with company or caged in. Doesn't know anything except that he can feel phantom eyes on his exposed back - can hear the pound of his heart against his ribs, breaths short, as he tries desperately to look behind him. To roll over; see the door. Do anything. Except his limbs are heavy. Trembling with exhaustion, even though he just woke up, and he can barely move them. Can barely even lift them.

Prickles of sweat start to make his skin itch. Rising along the wet, tender expanse of flesh. The cold clings to his sweat soaked shirt as it sticks to him, chafing uncomfortably - cotton rough against his skin like sandpaper- and he shivers violently. Wheezing, wracked by tremors. Feels like a live wire, nerves on fire - cool and hot all at once. Burning. Freezing. Helpless.

He tries to speak. To call out for someone. Hosea. John. Ji or Sheila or Charles. _Anyone_. Tries to make a word - a _noise_ \- but his throat won’t work. Instead it flares with pain, tongue swollen and flesh battered. Feels blackened and burnt, an aching mass of raw, searing agony. And it’s too much. Too little. Nothing at all. He can’t do anything or say anything. Can’t hardly move or speak or defend himself.

He feels moisture in his eyes again. Tears gathering before he can stop them. They pile up until his vision blurs, accompanied by small, irrepressible shakes in his frame. And he can’t help it. Can’t keep them from finally spilling over. Can’t keep the shudders at bay.

He inhales deep - too deep - and the air won’t come out again. Gets stuck in his chest, welling in his lungs. Pushing and pressing and swelling. Drowning him as he struggles to move - to speak - to _breathe_ -

“Arthur?”

He gasps. Pants. Heaves desperately for another breath, shuddering uncontrollably. Closes his eyes for some semblance of darkness. Of peace and warmth and comfort. Of quiet -

Only to have them flare open again as a hand lands on his shoulder, the world whiting out momentarily with the piercing resurgence of sunlight.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” a voice says,and it’s high - feminine. Mrs Johnson.

The hand is big, though. Definitely not Mrs Johnson’s. Thick fingered and strong as it presses into his aching muscles. Pulls at his shoulder and rolls him onto his back. Allows him to face the room and the door. To face the people inside.

Arthur sees Charles, first. Large, broad shoulders towering above him. Tall and impressive, but not invasive. Not intimidating. A firm, steady force of security. 

His eyes are kinder than Arthur remembers. Intelligent and reserved, mostly. Yet soft, too. Compassionate, almost caring. 

Beautiful.

And Arthur can’t look away from him. Can’t drag his gaze from full, pursed lips and thick black hair pulled into a loose tail. Can’t keep his eyes from that blue and white beaded necklace and the long, low drape of a dotted shirt. The smooth expanse of dark skin and the delicate trace of his collarbone. Can’t stop himself from seeing the swell of bruises along cheeks and cheekbones and eye sockets. The hint of a scar across his jaw - through his brow. The crooked strike of his nose.

Arthur can’t stop staring.

_Christ._

And now Charles is staring as well. Eyebrows pulling down in what Arthur thinks might be concern - or some facsimile of it, at least. Either way, it’s unwarranted and unwanted. Completely unwelcome from _this man,_ of all people.

Charles fucking Smith. 

No pretty face is enough to prevent the swift rise of defensive anger. Reactive, pointed fury. 

Arthur scowls up at him viciously.

Charles sighs and looks away. “He seems to be somewhat aware,” he says, tone smooth and lilting, no traces of cruelty to be heard. Almost kind.

Arthur has never wanted to hit anybody more in his life. 

“Is he still hot, dear?” Mrs. Johnson’s voice comes from further in the room. Closer to the door, and Arthur tries twisting to see her, but his body is still shaking and numb - infuriatingly uncooperative.

So he contents himself with glaring up at Charles. Trying to make his throat work. To make words come out. To spit in his godforsaken face.

After a second, Charles looks back down at Arthur, expression still drawn, pinching his lips in thought. Then, before Arthur can so much as blink, there’s a hand coming toward him, fingers splayed. The movement is slow and languid, clearly telegraphed. Yet Arthur’s heart still jolts, head instinctively pressing back into the pillows. It’s the smallest of flinches - exceedingly minute - but Charles must have noticed it, because he immediately pulls away, frowning.

Arthur gnashes his teeth, incensed. Wants to tell Charles he can handle it. That he isn’t weak. He isn’t _helpless_.

“Arthur,” Charles draws out slowly, and the roll of it across his tongue is taunting. Soothing and enraging all at once. “Can I check your temperature?”

Arthur works his throat - tries to respond - but all that comes out is a croak. Even that is harsh and painful, aggravating the already inflamed wound. So he closes his eyes. Forces himself to swallow down the anger and the humiliation. Nods.

It’s a shock of ice cold fingers that press to his forehead. Callused and gentle and startlingly unexpected. Arthur whines at the contact. Turns away from them. His chest ignites with a fire of heat and cold, forces from him a desperate, heavy huff as he writhes away.

“He’s burning up,” Charles murmurs, and there’s a note of worry in it. A low, anxious timbre. It should be frustrating. Should make Arthur rile and hiss. Protest in any way he can. But his head feels leaden - limbs limp and drained of energy - fury gone as if it were never there. Released in a small puff of breath. Weightless.

Thinking is tiring and focusing takes too much effort. Makes it hard to open his eyes again. To listen to the voices around him. Make sense of what they’re saying. Though the rise and fall of noise is soothing, in a way. A lull of lapping waves. Words that brush his mind. Not grating or persistent. Just there. Calming.

Peaceful.

“Arthur.” 

He blinks his eyes open to see Mr. Johnson, an empty room, shadowed corners -

And sunlight.

A length of red, orange, and yellow - _vibrant_ \- rays that streak across the other man’s face. Down the simple stripes of his shirt. Around the cast of a long shadow gracing the walls behind him - cutting through daylight’s remains.

It’s dusk, he realizes, and there’s nobody else in the room with them.

“Mr. Johnson?” Arthur startles at the words - _his_ words. Croaking wisps of sound, but coherent, at least. A streak of fire runs up his throat as they come out, duller than he remembers. Almost easy to ignore.

“Ji.” Arthur blinks dimly at the other man, uncomprehending. “I made you dinner. It’s good you’re awake to eat.”

“Is-” he chokes on the word and coughs, rasps, pushing himself onto his elbows. They feel wobbly as jelly, but at least he can move them again. “How- how long has it been?”

“Since you last woke up?”

Arthur nods feebly and blink away the spots in his vision. It takes an effort to reboot his mind. To force back the memories and the vigilance. To remind himself that he should be putting up a stronger front.

“Oh, that was late this morning,” Mr. Johnson responds, “You haven’t missed much. Aside from lunch, that is.” He moves, then. Striding from the foot of the bed to the door and peeling it open. Allowing the harsher, artificial lamplight of the hallway through. “I’ll go get the food, now that you’re awake.”

Arthur can’t help but feel flustered at the suddenness of it all.

Mr. Johnson speaks strangely and robotically, disorientingly toneless and direct, and it makes Arthur uneasy. Unsure of his motives or his feelings. Blinded to his intentions. When Mr. Johnson had been teaching him, Arthur hadn’t much noticed the other man’s way of speaking. Too focused on other things. Too entrenched in the flow of words and movement and unfiltered, raw facts. Now it stands out brightly, though, in the press of silence and inaction between them. Leaves him flat footed and confused as Mr. Johnson goes to exit the room after Arthur’s just woken. Frank speech of food and dinner and meals. Turning from the conversation before it’s ended.

He feels out of control.

“I want a shower.”

Mr. Johnson pauses in the doorway and looks back at him. Face impassive and blue eyes hard. Arthur takes comfort in the small, barely noticeable tick in the other man’s brow - the subtle downturn of lips. 

This man is almost as hard to read as Charles, but maybe he’s not a robot. Maybe he’s not even guarded, like Charles is. Maybe he just reads differently, in ways Arthur hasn’t learned yet.

That doesn’t make it any less disorienting, though. Or confusing, for that matter.

“I’ll just bring the meal in here.”

Arthur shakes his head, heart thumping. There is suddenly nothing he wants more right now than a shower. To be free of the grime and sweat and blood caked over his body. To get rid of this vile, sticky shirt and the pants glued to his legs by a number of things he would rather not think of. Sickening. His skin can only take so many wet rags before he needs to be under actual running water.

“I ain’t worried ‘bout my damn company at the dinner table!” It comes out as a snap, accent thick and brutish. A flash of anger that he has to catch and stamp down - force into the recesses of his mind. 

He can’t botch this now. Can’t chase Mr. Johnson away before he’s got what he wants. Arthur’s never cared much for vanity - knows he’s an ugly bastard most would turn away from - but he cannot go another second without running water.

“I just…want - _need_ \- to be clean. Please. Sir.”

“It’s Ji.”

“Mr...Ji, sir.”

Mr. Johnson hesitates, looking him up and down, then faces the hallway again. A half shadowed silhouette cast by both lamplight and sunlight. “I’ll have to ask Charles.”

 _Charles?!_ Unbelievable. This whole damn place is unbelievable!

“What the hell does Charles have to with me takin’ a shower?!” It’s abrasive and menacing right up until it isn’t. Right up until his voice splits at the end - grows weak and breaks off into a fit of coughs. He tries to scowl through it, but the heaving has him doubled over, the arm used to brace him shaking under the pressure.

Mr. Johnson doesn’t move to help him or to speak. Just waits silently through the vicious hacking - the trembling, weakened limbs - as Arthur slowly recovers. 

The silence says more than enough.

Mr. Johnson also seems to say more than enough, though. Or maybe he can’t leave anything to chance interpretation. Because the next words out of his mouth are, “you’re too weak to take a shower without help.” 

It’s said candidly, entirely innocent of the intent to harm, yet it stings something awful. Rubs salt in an already festering wound and makes the situation so much worse.

Arthur grits his teeth through the urge to lash out. Reminds himself that he wants this. He hates it, of course. Hates the babysitting and the guarding and the contrived, ridiculous rules but hell, he _really_ wants a damn shower.

“ _Fine,_ ” he eventually admits, “Fine. Go get Charles, I don’ care. Just let me outta these damn clothes.”

Mr. Johnson nods sharply, looking thoughtful. “I’ll go talk to him, then, but you need to eat afterwards. Your constant state of unconsciousness and this unbalanced sleep cycle have reduced your food input by a large margin. It’s quite the unhealthy lifestyle.”

“Right, well I’ll be sho’ to sleep less the next time I get a concussion.”

Mr. Johnson smiles at him, wrists meeting and fingers spreading outward in a strange parody of butterfly wings. “Okay then,” he says.

And then he leaves.

Arthur stares at the empty space for a moment, dumbfounded. Door unlocked and flung open. Nobody around. Hallway and kitchen laid bare.

_Do these people really think so little of him?_

Damn the injuries and the sickness. He oughta rob them right now just to spite them.

But he can’t, of course. So he settles for shuffling to the edge of the bed, instead. Throwing his legs over and maneuvering himself into a sitting position to show that he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He’ll only be needing a little bit of Charles’s help. Maybe not any.

The sound of footsteps marching down the hallway comes a lot sooner than Arthur had expected, though. He jumps, panics, and quickly pushes himself to stand. He staggers a bit, rushed, and almost falls over, managing to catch himself at the last minute on the endtable.

And only right then, because Arthur has the worst timing in the whole damn country, a shadow passes over the room. Charles’s massive silhouette blocking most of the light coming through the door. There’s a pause of surprise, then a sigh.

“What are you doing?” He asks, and there’s not enough collected stoicism in the world to hide the incredulous exasperation in his voice.

“What does it look like I’m doin’, ya moron?!” It’s loud and obligatory, but Arthur’s focused on other things. Like glowering at the floor, willing his legs to take even a single step forward. Willing his arm to shove him away from the endtable. Cursing concussions and fistfights and the godforsaken need for cleanliness as he does. 

He should at least be able to walk to the bathroom. He should at least be able to walk to the _door_.

He hears Charles start to move into the room, steps slow and light and barely noticeable, marked only by deliberate, heavy scuffs. He’s projecting his movements, Arthur knows. And it’s so obvious, so clearly for his benefit, that Arthur has to force down the shame again. The impotent, helpless anger. Ducking his head away as the other man comes up on his right side, closest to the door, and stops without touching or speaking. Quiet and respectful.

Then, softly, Charles asks, “do you need help getting to the bathroom?” Seeking permission. Again. As if Arthur’s opinion on the matter really counts. As if he has any say in what happens.

Arthur wonders what Charles would do if he didn’t answer. Or if he tried to go on by himself. Would Charles force him to accept the help? Would he grab him anyways? Would he just abandon Arthur to humiliate himself?

Arthur waits. 

Tense and wobbling, shaking like a leaf. Throat closing up as he refuses to speak. To do anything. As the seconds turn to minutes and the room slowly darkens. Arthur stands there and he waits.

Charles waits, too. 

He waits a very long time.

And Arthur can only be still for so long before he needs to do something. So, after what feels like years, he huffs and glares at the endtable. Clears his throat and looks away. Forces his throat to move; his tongue to work.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s hardly a whisper, but Charles must hear it, because he immediately moves. Quick and efficient but still excruciatingly gentle, every motion made open and predictable.

Arthur’s arm is lifted around Charles’s shoulders as the other man takes his full weight, levering Arthur from his precarious connection to the endtable without so much as pitching beneath his girth. Charles’s shoulders are warm and steadfast; his grip tender and secure. Yet the distance he keeps between them is respectable. The sincere desire to help without invading - without forcing himself on anyone.

Charles doesn’t pick him up, either. Doesn’t take on the full effort or drag Arthur like a limp puppet. He walks them - together - out the door. Slowly enough for Arthur to take weak, wobbling steps beside him. Slowly enough for him to put in a small portion of the work. And Arthur will never admit to anyone how pathetically grateful he is. How hard it is to hate this man, too. Sometimes. When he does things like this.

_He really is going soft._

Charles doesn’t have to help him for long, though. The walk to the bathroom is a short one. Just down the hallway and two doors from Arthur’s own room, placed on the opposite wall. When they arrive, Charles is the one to push the door open. He maneuvers carefully, guiding them both inside -

And that’s as far as Arthur can take it.

Once they set foot on chilled white tile, he tears his arm away and lurches further into the room, attempting to distance himself as much as he can from his sentry. He limps on unsteady legs over the pristine floor and soft pink bath rug. Stumbles clumsily until he reaches the edge of the sink, pushing from it with all his might to keep going. To prove that he's at least capable of something. That he hardly needs Charles’s help - or any help at all. And it’s the drive of his single minded determination that eventually gets him to the edge of the tub. That allows him to cling to the rack of towels there as he turns to finally face Charles.

Arthur clears his throat. “Well now, thank you for the help. It was much appreciated, but I can take it from here. You’re free to go.”

Charles does not look impressed. Filling up the doorway with his large frame, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, exuding all the enthusiasm of a lukewarm beer bottle.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he deadpans.

And Arthur can’t fucking take it anymore.

“Christ!” He explodes. “The hell is wrong with y’all?! I ain’t fixin’ to rob yo’ bathroom of the cheap shampoos and worthless plastic bits, okay? Yo’ safe! Yer all safe! Now get outta here!” Arthur teeters, out of breath, and waves an arm at the empty hallway, snarling, “I said get!”

Charles raises his eyebrows, entirely unfazed - unmoving. “No.”

“FUCK!” It’s exhaled in a coarse scream, and Arthur tries to take a deep breath afterward - ready to spit caustic venom at the other man until he bleeds from the words - but it catches at the back of his throat and flares painfully. Sends him into another fit as he curls over his stomach, hacking up his lungs and clutching desperately at the rack in order to stay upright.

The door slams shut with a resounding echo, and Arthur goes taut at the sound. Stifling his coughs enough to look up and see Charles flipping the lock on the door. When Charles turns back around his features are drawn, eyes dark. He looks almost angry.

“Are you always this dense?! You ain’t a child, so stop acting like one!” His voice booms through the small room, belligerent, as his shoulders tense with barely restrained violence, “I said I didn’t want you alone in this house, and I’m not going to leave you here by yourself when you can hardly stand!”

Arthur shakes his head. He tries to respond but a light cough escapes him before he can stop it. He presses a fist to his mouth, shoulders heaving with more silenced coughs, and stares resolutely at the ground. 

He’s made Charles angry again. The man only ever seems to get angry when he’s in the same room as Arthur.

Arthur wavers on the edge of apologizing, reminded starkly of their encounter just the other night, after he’d attacked Charles so brutally. He’s uncertain as to why he even feels like this at all - why he _keeps_ feeling like this. Ashamed and guilty and rebuked, as if he’s done anything but what he should. What he’s supposed to. What’s expected of him. 

These people aren’t his friends or his allies. They’re barely acquaintances. Practically the enemy. Protected only by his own temporary inability to fight and his failure to hurt them when he’d had the chance. This is his _job_. He reckons he shouldn’t have to feel guilty about distancing them. Especially _Charles_ , who’s at fault for putting him in this position in the first place.

Dutch and the others would agree. They all probably would have robbed these people already. As Arthur should have done the moment he met the Johsons. Hell, they’d all probably have killed the Johnsons, too. Shot them clean between the eyes and took everything they had. Except maybe…

Maybe not the girls. Or John, Arthur supposes. And maybe...maybe not Hosea, either.

Would Hosea want him to do this differently? To play it safe; act friendly and get in their good graces? He’s always going on about flies and honey, and maybe that’s what Arthur should do. Though he’s never been good at such things, not really. Hosea’s always the one with ideas. Him and Dutch.

Arthur wishes they were here. Then he wouldn’t have to speak at all. He could just stand menacingly as they talked and talked and talked. Spinning the yarn and making promises they won’t ever keep. Dutch and Hosea’d probably be able to get the Johnsons to hand over their money and their home happily, without them ever realizing they'd been robbed.

Would they be disappointed that Arthur hadn’t? That he’d made such a mess of things? 

He licks his lips. Drops his fist to his side and raises his eyes just a bit. Unable to quite meet Charles’s eyes. All he sees is tense fingers and clenched muscles. Small, old scars and a newly wrapped bandage, bound tight around the bulge of the other man’s forearm.

Arthur remembers that. He’s the one that had done it. That had made the injury. Caused Charles’s fury and his pain - his wariness.

If Arthur was Hosea, would that have ever happened? Maybe, by now, if Arthur hadn’t insulted him so much and attacked him so often, Charles wouldn’t even be wary at all. Arthur would be allowed to walk the house without a guard. Would be trusted enough to let around the valuables - to be left alone with the Johnsons.

Maybe he should do that now. Act all nice-like and kind. Defer to Charles and the Johnsons. Let them accept him into their home and their lives and their defenses. Take advantage of their kindness. Their caring, compassionate, and helping natures…

Bile scorches the back of his throat. Scalds his tongue and makes him gag. He retches and coughs again, gasping desperately for air, breaths wheezing. Through the rush of noise in his ears he hears footsteps approach. Sees Charles’s legs appear at the edge of his blurring vision - socked feet and loose black pants. Then there’s a sigh, almost sympathetic, and Charles’s voice. He sounds devoid of anger, now. Those calming, soothing tones wrapped in the barest hint of guarded concern.

“Are you alright?” He asks, soft as a whisper, and Arthur settles into it, thoughts gentling. His body shudders as he attempts to restrain the coughs. And he tries to focus on anything but the persistent ache in his throat. Tries to focus on the other man’s calming, pacifying presence. The comfort of his company. It’s almost easy to melt into the ensuing tranquility. To listen to rhythmic, hypnotizing breaths and match them with his own. To distract himself from it all.

Until, like the crack of a whip, he hears, “do you need help standing?”

And the peace shatters.

Arthur’s hackles instantly rise. He goes rigid, resulting in another violent cough. Then he clears his throat and looks up, finally managing to meet Charles’s eyes. He glares, baring his teeth in a ghoulish smile, and snarls, “go bathe in horse dung you _filthy stinkin’ maggot_.”

Charles rears back, eyes only briefly going wide with surprise before his entire face shutters defensively. The lines of his body go tense again as he whips to attention, like he wants to bite back - to tear into Arthur just as brutally. And Arthur wishes he would. Wishes it more than anything, but the other man just reigns everything in - muscles tight and shoulders stiff. He shakes his head and steps back until he’s pressed to the door.

“Your bandages need to be removed before you get in the shower,” he says, steely and cold, “after you get undressed.”

And that’s it. Then there’s nothing. No movement or words or comfort.

Dead silence.

_Maybe Arthur shouldn’t have said that._

He shifts hesitantly, and even the rustle of his clothes sounds too loud - too intrusive. As if he’s calling attention to himself. Doing something embarrassing or disgraceful. Something that invites all eyes on him.

Charles’s eyes.

Because Charles hadn’t turned away.

Arthur’s mouth feels heavy with an apology and a request, but he can’t voice either. Can’t make any part of his body work at all, vibrating with anxiety.

Charles wants him to get naked. Here. Now. Right in front of him. 

Arthur doesn’t know why his skin burns at the thought. Why his nerves have set alight and his thoughts have gone wired. He’s changed in front of other men before. Been naked in front of countless people without feeling this way. Vulnerable and uneasy and afraid, dissected beneath a hostile gaze. 

_What would Charles see?_

Arthur can’t help thinking about what he must look like right now. Pale and grimy and covered in blood. Is he too flabby or too bony? Or just pathetic, overall? Covered in cuts and bruises - dozens of monuments to his incompetence and worthlessness. He can’t hardly stand or walk. Can barely even hold himself up.

It isn’t as if his clothes cover it up, though. Isn’t as if Arthur’s actions and his appearance right now aren’t enough to prove how pitiful he is. Isn’t as if Charles needs to see beneath his clothes to know his true colors.

Why hasn’t Charles said anything? After days of Arthur healing. Days of him lying about, sleeping and piddling around and being useless. Days of him puking and shaking and sobbing in his own filth. Days of Arthur relying on the help of the people’s he’s hurt to get him through this. After all of that, Charles has got to have enough content to fuel a lifetime’s worth of mockery and humiliation. 

Surely he must want to use it against Arthur. He has the means to. Has enough proof of Arthur’s pathetic, despicable inadequacy to say whatever the hell he likes. He could have been doing it from day one - could continue to do it until Arthur’s gone from the world. Arthur’s given him no reason not to.

So why doesn’t he?

Bill would. And Dutch and Micah. Any of the people the gang works with would. Hell, even Mary might. John and the girls and Javier. Sean and Ms Grimshaw. All of them would. Any of the people Arthur’s _ever_ met before, really.

Except for Charles.

Charles and the Johnsons.

“I’m sorry.” It catches on a breath. Carries from his lips before he can stop it. Makes his heart plummet with shock, weak and thready and dizzying. He takes a shaky breath, tries to steady himself, and - “I’m sorry.” 

His throat swells and clogs, mouth drying, tongue numb. Charles is staring at him. Arthur knows he is. But he can’t meet the other man’s eyes anymore. Can’t do anything but bore holes into the floor beside Charles’s feet.

He feels guilty. _Why does he feel guilty?_

This has never happened before. _Apologizing_ has never happened before.

He’s not supposed to feel this way. He’s not supposed to doubt their work. To question the strength of their purpose. The validity of their jobs - the worth of their victims. That’s for Dutch. That’s for people smarter than Arthur. People who know more than Arthur. People that aren’t enforcers and gunslingers and _dumb_ _brutes_ and _debt collectors_.

It isn’t his place to think such things.

“Okay, Arthur,” Charles hums, but it’s still dispassionate. Unforgiving.

Arthur doesn’t expect forgiveness. He never has. Yet he’s weak, too. Unable to move - hardly able to walk. It hurts to admit it, but Charles is the only one in the room right now capable of doing more than stand in place. It’s difficult to ask, and getting the words out is like pulling teeth, but he has to say them.

“I can’t, um - I can’t -” He shuffles awkwardly and hunches his shoulders, forcing himself to keep going. “I... _need_...I need - help. Please.”

“Is something wrong?” Charles seems to know exactly what’s wrong, but he does nothing to intervene, watching the whole thing critically. 

Arthur wonders if Charles thinks it's an act. Arthur wishes it was.

“I can’t - can’t get my shirt off-” _or my pants_ , Arthur winces, faltering, “it’s...I - can you...help me. Please... _Charles_.”

Charles almost looks amused now, the bastard. Arthur glowers at him, then catches it. Tries fruitlessly to school his features into something more peaceful. Something convincing, maybe. Yet Charles only looks even more amused - the hint of a smirk ghosting across his lips.

Fuck this bastard. He’s going to be the first person Arthur kills when he gets better.

“Hm,” Charles finally says, crouching to pull open the cabinet beneath the sink, rustling through it, “can you get to the toilet?”

Arthur scoffs. “‘Course I can! It ain’t exactly far.” Only two steps away. Child’s play.

“Okay, sit there. I’ll undress you and take care of your bandages.”

“Err, right,” Arthur chuffs, face heating. 

He yanks his hand away from the towel rack too quickly and slides, stumbles, careening toward the toilet with uneven steps. His sock slips slightly, ankle puffed and screaming, and he wobbles. Catches himself on the back of the toilet and hangs there for a moment. Then he bends, grunting with the effort, and twists slowly until he falls ungracefully in the direction of the toilet seat. When he finally manages to plop his ass down on the closed lid - rounded plastic warbling beneath his weight - he heaves a deep breath, exhausted. After a few seconds, he looks over to check on Charles, only to catch the other man gaping at him incredulously.

“What?!” He demands defensively, “I’m here, ain’t I?”

Charles shakes his head in disbelief. “Are you _physically_ incapable of admitting to weakness?”

_Weakness gets you killed. Admit to it and you’re dead. The world has no place for mercy, kindness and compassion._

“I asked you fo’ help, didn’t I?” Arthur protests, jerking his chin in Charles’s direction, “Wat’chu got there, anyway? I thought we was only takin’ things off, not puttin’ more on.”

Charles hums and stands, hands full of small medicine bottles. “We need to apply these to your new bandages after you’re finished.” He starts to line them along the front of the sink. “It’s good to be prepared for wounds like this. The doctor said-”

“Doctor?! You got a doctor involved?”

“ _Relax_ ,” Charles stresses, “his involvement was minimal. We only called him in to consult.”

Arthur snorts. “ _Minimal involvement_. The hell does that mean?! What did you _tell him_ , huh?”

Charles doesn’t rise to the bait. Setting down the last bottle carefully beside a fresh wrap of bandages before responding.

“You had severe head trauma, Arthur. You’re lucky to be alive, and you owe that luck to the doctor willing to risk his career by getting involved in criminal activity with next to no knowledge of the situation.” Charles comes over to him then, steps large and quick, though still telegraphed. He crouches in front of Arthur and looks him dead in the eye, jaw clenched and lips pursed. “We didn’t _tell him_ a thing.”

He holds Arthur’s gaze for a long time afterward, as a thick silence pervades the room. It’s heavy and uncomfortable, as is the look in Charles’s eyes - determined and affronted and a hundred other things Arthur could never name. It’s too much. Too intense. Arthur has to break the gaze after a while. Can’t stand the way his skin crawls.

He coughs to break the silence. Swallows roughly and stares at the line of medicines on the sink.

“That might be the longest I ever heard you speak,” he rasps out eventually, just to get the conversation going again.

Charles doesn’t react, though. He just hums and settles in, placing his hands flat on either side of Arthur’s legs.

“Are you ready?”

“You sound like yo’ ‘bout to rail me, friend. Just take the damn shirt off.”

Charles's eyebrows quirk faintly, cheeks darkening, and his eyes zero in on Arthur’s chest. Suddenly too embarrassed to look him in the eyes, Arthur thinks, puffing up victoriously.

And then there are hands on him. Sliding beneath the only layer of armor he has and brushing faintly against the sensitive skin of his stomach. Zings of chilled, unexpected contact that have him stiffening, sucking in a shocked breath.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.” He just wants to get through this. Just wants to finally be clean - to finally have some semblance of control over his body again.

Not that he has much right now, either, with Charles doing most of the work.

Arthur can help a little, at least. He needs to do something. Needs to prove he isn’t completely out for the count. Especially in front of Charles. So he closes his eyes. Whips his arms up to make things easier -

\- and then immediately regrets it. His ribs flare painfully at the harsh movement, head going dizzyingly light, and he can feel Charles pause with uncertainty, the shirt half raised.

“Shit, Charles! Anytime this year would be great!”

He hears an irritated sigh, and then Charles leans in, taking advantage of the opportunity before it’s gone. He pulls the shirt up in one swift, easy motion that has Arthur’s whole world rocking. He wavers briefly in place, unbalanced, then manages to settle back in again, ignoring the echoing tweak in his ribs as he lets his hands drop back to his lap. Arthur shivers at the wash of cool air over his skin, opening his eyes to notice Charles studying him worriedly.

“See? Easy.”

“If you’re sure.” Charles begins to move forward again, then hesitates, fingers stretched towards the bandages around Arthur’s ribs. “May I?”

Arthur pushes away the unease and stares resolutely at the wall behind Charles’s head. “Sho’. Said you could, or don’t you remember?”

“Hm. I remember just fine.” 

Arthur doesn’t quite know what that means, so he lets it go, running his gaze distractedly over the scuffed white walls as Charles peels away the bandages. He tries to focus on anything but the rocket of his heart every time Charles accidentally brushes his skin. Tries to focus on the long run of a crack at the bottom of the wall, instead. Tries to focus on the fluffy pink edge of the carpet as it meets the baseboard. How Charles’s socked toes dig into the plush fabric. The rise of his legs and the bulge of his thighs.

Arthur coughs and pulls away, suddenly all too aware of the extent of his blush. How his shoulders and his neck go red seconds before his cheeks do. How his chest gets splotchy and the ugly freckles on his arms stand out stark against his pale flesh. How Charles can see it all. Right now. With Arthur half naked and Charles’s fingers against his skin - face only inches away.

Except not anymore. The hands are missing. Charles’s head is gone. Pulled back and away, looking up at him with a searching, speculative gaze.

“Are you alright?” Charles asks, frowning, and Arthur has a brief moment to wonder if Charles has gotten more expressive or if Arthur’s just gotten better at reading him before the question finally hits.

He scowls indignantly at the implications. “Why wouldn’t I be? I said you could do this.”

“You can take it back at any time, you know. If you want to take a break, or come back to this later.”

“Christ, would you listen to yourself? I ain’t no spoiled child or helpless halfwit. I can take a bit o’ discomfort without whinin’ ‘bout it to the whole damn world!”

“What about this is making you uncomfortable?”

“What?”

“What about this is making you uncomfortable?”

“I heard what ya said, ya brainless-”

“I refuse to continue this if you aren’t comfortable with it.”

Arthur blinks at him in shock. “What?”

“We can do this another time, if we have to. You don’t have to follow through with it.”

“I _said_ you could do it.”

“That was minutes ago, Arthur. Things change. If you want to wait until you’re stronger. Until you can do this yourself, without help-”

Arthur barks out a laugh. “Hell no! I ain’t waitin’ however long it takes me to regain my strength ‘afore I take a damn shower! Have you seen me? Shit, have ya _smelt_ me?! I’m surprised you ain’t keeled over yet, bein’ so close.”

Charles hesitates again, brow still furrowed with concern. “We could-”

“No more wash rags. No more wipe downs. I’m soaked in sweat and covered in blood. My pants have been caked to my legs with mud longer’n I been _alive_ at this point. I ain’t leavin’ this room till I get under some runnin’ water, an’ you can put that on my damn gravestone!” Arthur rants, fit to be tied. He crosses his arms and sets his chin defiantly, glaring down the other man.

Charles stares at him for a second, gaze unreadable, then hums and bites his lip. He runs his eyes up and down the length of Arthur’s body, as if to ascertain something. It takes a long time, and Arthur isn’t entirely sure what Charles is even ascertaining, but whatever it is, the other man seems to be at least somewhat mollified, because the tension in his body leaks out just a bit. Allows him to slump broad shoulders and rest his elbows on the bend of his knees - forehead smoothing enough to be rid of some stress crinkles.

It’s the first time Arthur thinks he’s ever seen Charles so relaxed, though he knows this is only a fraction of what it could be. Charles is always so stressed and tense around him. That’s a given, of course, but Arthur’s never realized how much it’s affected the other man - physically and mentally. 

It takes Arthur longer than it should to remind himself that he shouldn’t be pleased about this. That Charles dropping his guard even slightly means he doesn’t consider Arthur as much of a threat. That he doesn’t think Arthur is strong and capable and frightful - somebody to be afraid of, give money to, stay away from. That Charles doesn’t consider the Van der Linde gang’s enforcement and defenses good enough to defer to. Good enough to avoid and be wary of. 

This is a bad thing. A very bad thing, Arthur has to remind himself.

But it’s difficult to keep the thought in his head when the other man is crouched on a fluffy pink bath rug in a tiny white bathroom. Ponytail mussed and loose, a few stray strands falling before his dark eyes, going through the trouble of helping Arthur undress just so he can find himself some small shred of comfort and control.

“If we continue with this,” Charles says, “I need to know you’ll speak out against anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Arthur shifts, eyes darting briefly to the floral shower curtain before landing back on Charles. “‘S just a shower,” he mutters.

“Arthur, you’ve asked me to strip you -” Arthur chokes on his spit, hacking violently in response, but Charles keeps going, “I’ve already taken off your shirt and I’m about to remove your pants. Then I’m going to help you get into the shower naked.”

“Okay,” Arthur wheezes, heaving, “you ain’t gotta-”

“Then take this seriously. You’re the one who wants to be here. If you don’t want to be here anymore, we don’t have to be.”

“I _do._ ”

“Then give me your word.”

“I - okay. Yeah, I’ll...tell you if it gets too much, I guess.” It’s slow and hesitant and undeniably doubtful, and it immediately engenders a narrow eyed look of scrutiny from Charles. But the admission seems to pass for some sort of acceptable in some law book somewhere, because eventually Charles nods his endorsement and turns away. He starts to bind up the dirty bandages, setting them aside neatly with Arthur’s folded shirt. 

Arthur watches him quietly for a time. Replaces the tendrils of lurking panic and doubt in his mind with curiosity. Makes himself wonder about the man in front of him. 

It isn’t hard to do, of course, because Arthur does wonder. He wonders why Charles is acting in such a way. All nice-like and considerate, as if he cares at all what happens to Arthur. As if he cares at all what Arthur thinks. Arthur reckons anybody who’s suffered as much under Arthur’s hands as Charles has would be a bit more up in arms and a bit less...healing.

Charles doesn’t seem the forgiving type. Or the type to let a threat risk walk loose around the home of his family. Charles doesn’t seem the type who would have done anything to save Arthur at all, had it come down to it.

Which means the reason has to be the Johnsons. They’re the only parties involved in this whole mess that seem to want Arthur here. Strangely enough.

Does saving one life really mean so much? Arthur doesn’t even remember it. The last thing he remembers about that day is fixing for a fight. Then finding one - a brutal one. With somebody who clearly knew what they were doing.

Charles doesn’t remember it much, neither. The only people who remember it are Ji and Sheila. Yet Charles will take their word for it; will care for Arthur because of it. And Ji and Sheila think that such an action is enough to earn him help and healing and kindness, instead of a bullet to the skull while he’s unconscious. 

They must know he isn’t a good person for it, though. That he isn’t a good person for doing one kind deed he doesn’t remember. A decision that he probably made with the backing of three concussions and massive head trauma. They must know he isn’t fixing to let them off the hook once this is all over. That he’s still going to hurt them, in the end. Still going to rob them. Still going to hurt others, too, when all is said and done.

They must know it.

And yet they help him.

It doesn’t make sense. None of it does.

“I’m going to remove your pants, now,” Charles breaks the silence, “are you ready?”

“Yeah, uh...do ya need me...to…” Arthur gestures wordlessly, not entirely certain even he knows what he means.

Charles’s lips turn up in a half second smile before his face darkens again. “Maybe,” he says, “This is going to get a bit involved. I’ll need to lift you, unless you think you can do it on your own?”

Arthur shakes his head and looks away again. Batters down the shame and the anger and that vicious, spiteful urge to turn every minuscule crack in Charles’s armor to cutting insults. He bites his lip to keep the words at bay, but that doesn’t work very well. So he bites his tongue instead. Bites it until it’s bleeding, head lowered and eyes glued to the floor. 

“I can’t...anymo',” he admits through clenched teeth. And he doesn’t know how to say that his ankle is on fire and his foot is numb and his thighs tremble with every breath he takes. That walking from his bedroom to the bathroom earlier had wiped out the last bit of strength he had left. It’s shameful and disgraceful. Embarrassing to even think, let alone speak.

Charles takes it in stride, though. Moving up and leaning forward as Arthur quickly averts his eyes, staring at the door to their left instead. Mentally preparing himself.

“Okay then, I’m going to grab you. Ready?”

Arthur nods, and then Charles’s hands are on him. Around his shoulders and under his arms and hooked in his waistline, digging into his thighs. He blanks his mind. Tries to help, where he can, but there’s only so much Arthur can do with his body so weak.

Charles actually has to get out scissors, at one point, to cut through the worst of it. And when it’s all over - Arthur’s legs cold and exposed, arms crossed over his stomach to prevent the shivering - Charles’s face is tight with fury again. His eyes are hard and he throws the torn, brutalized pants aside carelessly, movements rash. 

“What is this?” He demands, voice low and menacing, shaking with barely contained anger.

Arthur has to resist rolling his eyes at the whole display. And Charles called him childish. Honestly. “‘S just my ankle. Relax.”

“ _Just_ your ankle?! This is broken, Arthur!”

“What? No, it’s jus’ sprained. Probably. I don’t know-”

“No, you clearly don’t.”

“Hey! I ain’t a damn doctor, okay? How the hell was I supposed to know that it was broken?!’

“You knew we had no knowledge of it, and it’s been paining you for days! Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you ask?”

“I ain’t weak, okay?! It’s broken, so what?” It’s not ‘so what’, of course. This is very, very bad. Because it means Arthur won’t be healed for ages. He won’t be getting out of here for a very, very long time. And that can’t happen, it can’t -

“You shouldn’t be walking on this!” He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Charles so wound up. “You shouldn’t even be limping on it without a cast. What the hell were you thinking?!” 

Charles clenches his fists and lets out an explosive breath. Visibly restrains himself, the harsh lines of anger in his frame softening. Muscles loosening and features gentling, fingers uncurling. He shakes his head, clenches his jaw, shoulders rising. Then takes another breath to let it all out. Relaxes again. Tense and soft. Angry and calm. In and out. In and out. Rhythmic stress relief.

Arthur swallows, watching him. Unsure what to say. He really hadn’t known it was so bad. The pain hardly compares to the massive bruise making up the rest of his body. How was he to know?

_By telling the Johnsons._

Arthur scoffs internally. And admitting to weakness? Letting them know he’s helpless. Letting them see him acknowledge that he’s helpless. That he has one more injury to add to the collection. One more advantage they have over him. One more injury to keep him here.

This injury is a big one, too.

 _Walking_.

He has to focus everything he has on keeping his heart from jumping right out of his chest. The harsh, painful thump of it against his ribcage is agonizing.

Maybe he should take his chances in the wilderness, after all. Sneak out...somehow. Steal a phone - without them noticing. Call the gang? With phone numbers he doesn’t remember. And that’s only excepting any scenarios where the Johnsons find out about the gang’s existence as a result, because he refuses to be the reason they have to uproot again. Refuses to be the reason for more of their suffering and misery - more of their deaths.

Maybe he can just ride his bike back home with a broken ankle.

Christ, what a disaster that would be. Arthur can already hear Ms. Grimshaw screaming.

And unfortunately, he can’t exactly do that, either. Can’t hardly do a thing. Even if the gang does notice he’s missing, they don’t know he’s here. Don’t know he never finished collecting the debts. Don’t know a thing.

Staying with the Johnsons doesn’t feel like much of a choice, anymore. 

He feels imprisoned again. Shackled and tied - bound by strings of hopelessness and circumstance and utter misery. Alone.

Nobody’s coming for him.

And the only people willing to stay by his side are the people he’s tormented and hurt. The family he tried to break apart. The couple he tried to put out on the streets. The man he tried to beat. To kill. To destroy.

What a goddamn mess.

“We can’t go through with this,” Charles says, and it’s calm and simple, but Arthur’s heart sinks, stomach lurching. A sickening dread pours over him like ice water. Needles at his bones and nails in his chest. 

_They’re going to kick him out._

“What?” It’s breathy. Breathless. Shaky and feeble. He can barely hear it through the rush of noise in his ears. His brain feels like an ocean, an endless wash of waves. Deafening.

_They’re kicking him out._

“You can’t take a shower now,” Charles sighs, and Arthur blinks at him dubiously, brain forcibly rebooting with the words, “you can hardly stand.”

_Oh._

The world returns in a rush of heat and embarrassment. 

_What a damn idiot._

He’d almost done it _again_. Almost humiliated himself in front of Charles - the opposition, the _enemy_ . Almost shamed Dutch and everybody associated with him. He’d almost made a complete and utter fool of himself in front of these people - in front of Charles - _again_. And for what?

A simple misunderstanding.

Arthur Morgan - Van der Linde’s most trusted enforcer. 

What a joke.

“What about a bath?” He doesn’t know why he says it. Why he cares. There are dozens of more important things to worry about, but he just...he really wants to get clean.

“Hm,” Charles responds. There’s a long silence as he stands and takes the bandages to the trash. Then gathers Arthur’s shirt and jeans, pausing for the barest hint of a second in consideration, before dumping both into the trash as well.

Arthur scowls at him. “I ain’t that bad.”

“Then why do you want to take a bath so badly?”

Arthur thinks he might be growing to prefer the silence. 

Charles starts to come back over, then lags near the sink, surveying the bottles and bandages lined up there. Arthur peers at him through the corners of his eyes. Watches the other man pick up a small bottle of pills and turn away from the rest. Charles pops them open when he stops in front of Arthur and hands him two of the pills.

“Painkillers,” he explains, showing Arthur the bottle’s label. Then he tosses the bottle back to the sink and continues on to the tub’s edge. He doesn’t say a thing more as he starts to turn the knobs, the sound of rushing water soon filling the small room.

Arthur takes the pills dry as he watches. “They’ve really got you playin’ babysitter with me and you don’t mind?” 

“ _They_ have names.”

“Yeah. The Johnsons.”

“Ji and Sheila.”

“I could care less. Don’t you have a job or nothin’? I mean, you been here for days now, slavin’ away for folk that don’t even got the means to pay you. Ain’t you a bit frustrated?”

Charles doesn’t respond this time. Resolutely stoic as he dips over the rising water and tests the temperature.

“Low on money?” Arthur persists, undeterred, “Need a job? Strapped for cash? Sleepin’ rough? Cleaned out? No? Nothin’? You ain’t even a little tapped out?”

Charles sighs. “Not in the slightest.”

“So why not give a little, then? Why’re the Johnsons so far in debt they ain’t never gon’ see the light, but yer sittin’ pretty on a nice big pile o’ cash?”

Charles slams the water off. Steam rising from the tub, curling and thickening in the air. “These are matters that don’t concern you. Leave them alone.”

“Or you’ll _what_?”

Charles doesn’t answer again, but he’s stiff as a board when he finally turns to face Arthur, expression hard and reserved.

“I’m going to help you to the tub,” he says evenly, “Are you ready?”

Arthur’s riles, huffing. “I can at least walk to the bathtub-”

“Oh be quiet!” Charles finally snaps, “Has the incident with the toilet already slipped your mind?”

Arthur flushes at the reminder. He ducks his head, rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck. “That wasn’t-”

“Your ankle is broken. You’re too weak to move. You need help. And if your head wasn’t so far up your ass, you’d see that. Now, are you _ready_?” 

Arthur tugs at the fraying strands of his hair. Lets the rest fall in front of his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Charles. “I ain’t. Uh -”

“Naked?”

Arthur thinks he must look like a tomato right now with how red he’s getting - skin burning all the way down to his navel. It’s just the steam, of course, and the heat. And it has nothing to do with how embarrassed he is over something he’s done countless times with dozens of other men.

“Get in the tub and take them off there, then. I’m already bringing you a new set of clothes.” He moves back over to Arthur, crouching in the same position as before, and Arthur eyes him warily. Charles had seemed so angry seconds ago. Where had it all gone? “We need to get this over with. Your wounds need to be re-wrapped, _including your ankle_ , and your food is getting cold. You’ve been up and about far longer than you should be.”

“Alright,” Arthur says, and as soon as the words leave his lips Charles is hauling him up. Slinging one of Arthur’s arms around his shoulders effortlessly as he walks them to the tub. It’s all easy, loud movements Arthur can read ahead of time. All sincerely deliberate and painfully slow. Accomplished with the grace of someone who’s done such things before, frequently and often. 

“Do you work with animals?” Arthur asks as they struggle forward, more curious than anything. He thinks maybe this counts as fraternizing with the enemy, but at this point he reckons most everything he’s done in the past hour counts as a horrible betrayal. 

He’s trying not to think too much about it.

“Hm,” Charles answers. It sounds sort of like an agreement, so Arthur takes it as one. The conversation has pretty much died, though. Not that it had lived much in the first place. So he stays quiet as they shuffle awkwardly in front of the tub. Charles half lifting half pushing him over the lip as Arthur limps forward and focuses on not sliding to his bloody death against the hard white iron. His ankle protests every movement, flaring with agony as it comes into contact with the water, but he keeps going. Pushes himself away from Charles and lets himself fall into the tub with a soft splash. The water is hot against his chilled skin, and he can’t help groaning at the contact. Sinking completely into the warmth as his muscles relax, pain ebbing.

“Are you good to stay here?”

Arthur shakes the water from his eyes and looks up at the other man. “What?”

“I need to leave. Are you good here for a few minutes?”

Arthur scoffs in disbelief. “Yeah, I ain’t gon’ rob ya. Relax.”

Charles doesn’t say anything more. He just gives Arthur a look like he’s the dumbest fool he ever saw. Then he turns to leave, striding over to the door and opening it before Arthur can do anything.

Arthur’s breath catches, heart jumping. “Charles!”

The other man stops and turns to him. His hair shines beneath the bathroom’s fluorescent bulbs, but his back is lit by the harsh yellow hallway lighting. He’s wearing a long sleeved gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, soft and fuzzy on the inside, and he’s got on loose black pants. No shoes, too. Just brightly patterned socks. He looks...different from the other times. Normal. Not a fighter or a protector or a bodyguard, and it’s the first time Arthur’s considered that he’s in Charles’s home, too - not just the Johnsons’. 

“Thank you,” he says, trying to make it sound stronger than it is. Trying to make it sure and knowing, as confident as Charles’s own tones when speaking, but he’s not so sure he’s succeeded. Not so sure he doesn’t still sound weak and pitiful, naked and exposed and _thanking_ the man who beat him into the dirt. Who put him here.

Charles loosens again, though. Shoulders dropping minutely and fingers going slack. Tells that would go unnoticed by many, but not by Arthur. Not when watching someone as capable as Charles is. Who’s every movement could be a threat; the split second warning before attack. 

Charles doesn’t respond with words, but he nods slightly, a smile curling the corners of his lips. Then he turns away again and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.

And Arthur is left in silence. Breaths rippling over the calm surface of hot, steaming bathwater. 

Bathwater poured by Charles. That Arthur was helped into by Charles. Water owned by the Johnsons. Ji and Sheila, who owe him money. Who he’s hurt. Ji and Sheila who let him do this - who are taking care of him. And Charles, who he fought. Who he _stabbed_ with a fork only a couple nights ago. Doing this for him despite it’s pointlessness. Despite the fact that Charles has nothing to gain from it. 

None of them do.

Yet here they are. Here Arthur is. Safe and warm, ensconced in their kindness.

And he’s never been more confused. More conflicted.

When did life become so complicated?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: head trauma, mild emetophobia, panic attacks, fear of punishment, references to unhealthy relationship, unintentional misgendering, negative self talk, self hatred, negative self esteem, mild fatshaming, negative self image, referring to trauma reactions/temporary disability as pathetic, derogatory language/insults.
> 
> A/N  
> Arthur: Well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions!  
> He be over here causing Charles to resort to lamaze breathing in order to stay sane lmao. This chapter is more character oriented than plot oriented, and I hope nobody minds! It's a fluff chapter with the obligatory bathroom scene, as well as our boys getting to know each other a bit more. As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated. I'm always open to people's thoughts on things! :)
> 
> A theory: the honor meter isn’t indicative of Arthur’s honor as a person, but rather his belief in change for the better, and subsequently the positive impact that belief has on the outside world and his esteem. A low honor Arthur is fully capable of being a high honor Arthur (and is one deep down) but LH Arthur has no faith in his own change and therefore no belief that putting goodness into the world would save himself or others. I think Arthur, realistically depicted, is all of the honors at once, but High Honor only in that he is, despite everything and his own protests to the contrary, an optimist. He has faith in change - his own as well as that of the world. So he makes that change. He believes in himself, a better future, and others. If that makes any sense. Perhaps I should have worded that better lol.
> 
> Songs Listened To:  
> Breathe by Fleurie  
> Song of a Caged Bird by Lindsey Stirling  
> Love and War by Fleurie  
> When the Truth Hunts You Down by Sam Tinnesz


End file.
